Runaways
by StarStepper
Summary: The Avengers are a group of teenage vigilantes, each with their own dark past. Their typical targets are child abusers, and the media doesn't have a very high opinion of them. Tony Stark, abused by his father and uncle and desperately hunting for his mother's killer, just wants to help them do their job-he didn't think he'd get attached. He definitely didn't think they'd let him.
1. Chapter 1

**PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE read the Author's Note at the end! But enjoy first XD**

**Chapter 1**

The first time Tony meets them, he's only just turned thirteen.

He's outside in the garden his mother used to love, crouched by her hydrangeas, fingering the delicate petals and dreaming of another time. Of arms wrapped around him and of sweet and citrus perfume.

Of course, that was before the "accident."

He was late with the schematics again, and his ribs ache and burn with every movement. His father asked for plans for nerve gas capable of incapacitating and potentially killing hundreds of people at a time, and Tony had refused. Again. His father yelled and roared and threw his bottles and his glasses and spare parts, but that was normal.

What wasn't normal was that Obie was there. And when Obie was there, it didn't stop when Howard was finished.

Tony sighs, wrapping a protective arm around his middle and hissing. He really should wrap his ribs, but he's too tired, now. Too at peace out here in the cool darkness with nothing but the plants for company.

Or so he thinks.

A branch snaps to his left. His head whips around so fast his ribs scream, but he's too startled to notice. His breath comes in one short gasp and stops abruptly, like that of a cornered animal.

Have Obie and Howard come after him? Or is it someone else?

Silently, he slips his hand from the outstretched petal, moisture from its last watering dripping from his fingers. He slinks back into the shadows as quietly as he can, as quickly as he can, hoping to hide before they see him—

A hand claps over his mouth and pulls him back against a firm chest. The grip is tight, but not painful. Tony doesn't register that as he lashes out on instinct, reaching up to pry the hand away, kicking backwards at his attackers' knees, striking out with his elbows—

He feels his right elbow connect with flesh, and a wheezed _oomph_ follows, but the hold only loosens slightly. His ribs are screaming, now, and it's not the first time he's been kidnapped, but no matter how much it happens, Tony's always terrified that it's going to be the last.

Small, calloused hands seize his right wrist and lock his arm, not painfully, but none-too-gently, and he's left kicking at air and clawing at the hand over his mouth with just his left hand, muffled noises of fear and protest just barely sounding.

"Hey," a voice says authoritatively. Tony keeps struggling, but settles down enough to see the man speaking to him. He's a hulking figure in front of him, at least a foot taller than himself, and he comes into the light, and—

—and he can't be more than a few years older than Tony. If Tony had to guess, maybe sixteen.

"Hey," he says again, his expression serious, but his eyes gentle. "I'm sorry for scaring you, okay? Clint and Natasha and I aren't going to hurt you. Alright? Do you understand?"

Tony's eyes are wide, and he's still squirming, but his ribs ache fiercely and he's exhausted himself. He's all but slumped against the one holding him, his legs shaking, his heart hammering.

"I know you don't know us or trust us, but you're gonna have to help us, okay?" The man—well, not quite a man, Tony thinks, but more of a man than he is—has an expression crossed between concerned, regretful, and nonnegotiable. "One of our friends is hurt, and we need some supplies."

The more he keeps talking, the more Tony begins to recognize him, and the names become more familiar. Clint, and Natasha—the face in front of him—they're three members of the vigilante group of runaway teenagers the media has dubbed the "Avengers." A Russian orphan capable of tricking, seducing, and killing anything alive, a scarily accurate circus kid with a bow, a genius with interesting side effects from his father's unethical gamma testing, a victim of a criminal organization's brainwashing and training with a metal arm, a Scandinavian boy with a special weapon that responds only to him—

—and the product of the government's physical enhancement testing, whose parents had given him to them in exchange for a new house and an early retirement.

Tony's stopped struggling at this point, simply focusing on the guy in front of him and trying to breathe deeply through his nose to get rid of the black spots in his vision. The grip on his arm has lessened in response, and the hand over his mouth isn't nearly as tight.

"We just need some first aid supplies, and we'll be out of your life," the guy says, and Tony remembers that his name is "Steve" something—Hodges? Dodger…? "If Clint and Natasha let you go, are we going to have any problems?"

Tony takes a slow breath through his nose and shakes his head. His arm is released, and then he's standing on his own, gasping in a breath. He wraps an arm around his ribs.

He looks up at Steve, who's frowning. "Did they hurt you?"

Tony shakes his head, backing up a step as Steve's hand twitches out, like he wants to check out the injury. Steve stops short at the movement. "It's old. I'm okay."

Steve doesn't look entirely satisfied, but he nods, then squares his shoulders. "One of our friends is hurt badly. Do you have a first aid kit?"

Tony honestly has to laugh at the notion of a vigilante group roaming the country, running from the law, avenging whatever crime they come across—especially those in which children are hurt by someone. It seems like the plotline of a bad movie. It seems surreal.

If he's being honest, he admires them.

They turned their backs on the ones who hurt them, who treated them like they were nothing, and they found each other. If what the media says is true, they _are_ their own family, and in the tightness of Steve's shoulders, the worry lines marring his face, Tony thinks it may very well be true. He's worried.

Tony wishes he were that strong, but he's not. So he makes a decision.

"I know some first aid," he offers quietly, afraid of alerting Howard or Obie, or one of the servants. "You can bring your friend inside and stay the night, if you want."

The look on Steve's face might have made Tony laugh if he hadn't been so tired.

"Or you can keep walking until the next cop sees you," Tony says, shrugging. He doesn't particularly want that to happen, but Steve doesn't need to know that. "I know you're those 'Avengers' on the news, and everybody's looking for you. It doesn't matter very much to me."

Steve's eyes harden again and flick behind Tony. A small figure comes around Tony's peripheral, stopping beside Steve. It's a girl around Steve's age, maybe a little younger, with fiery red hair and an expression that could freeze Earth's core. He guesses the other one, Clint, must still be behind him, then. Boxed in. "Why would you take it upon yourself to let us stay the night when you could be arrested for just talking to us?"

She's not asking disbelievingly. It's clinical, and probing, and Tony knows he has a very small window of answers that will be acceptable to her.

He dazzles her with his best high-wattage grin and says, "Because I'm bored."

It's his best act. The bored, rich teenager with no worries and a billion dollars of spending money to blow. He hates it every time he puts the mask on, but it gets him what he wants.

She—Natasha—regards him coolly. "You know first aid?"

"Yep."

"Where'd you pick that up?"

_YouTube videos and med school textbooks on how to stitch yourself back together when some people seem stuck on injuring you in literally every way possible_. "Well, if you know who I am, you know I'm a genius."

Steve's eyebrows are raised in amusement, but he looks confused. Natasha's arms are crossed now, and she looks distinctly unimpressed. "Tony Stark."

"Oh, so you've heard of me."

"Can you fix our friend or not?"

Tony pauses, glancing behind him. He catches a glance of Clint in the shadows, but he's looking for the injured party in particular. "I mean, I'd have to know what I'm dealing with, but I've dealt with a lot before."

And he really has. Obie and Howard can get…creative, sometimes.

Natasha eyes him for a moment longer. "Nat?" Steve asks, his eyes gentle as he looks at her, deferring to her opinion.

She gives one sharp nod. "Anyone else in the house with you?"

"Not on my side," Tony says. "Anyone else in the house is either asleep or passed out drunk, probably." Obie has probably left by now, and Howard is most _definitely_ drunk himself into oblivion.

"One night," Natasha whispers to Steve, then eyes Clint. "You on board?"

"Bet your ass I am," a voice says from behind Tony, and he turns to keep them all in his line of sight. "Regulated temperatures? I'm _there_."

Three figures come stumbling out of the trees, the one in the middle limp, his arms over each of the others' shoulders. Tony can hear the ragged breathing from where he is.

"Steve, he's getting worse," a young voice says. A small boy—still older and bigger than Tony, but not by nearly as much as Steve; probably only by a year-with curly brown hair and glasses says, struggling under the weight.

Tony ignores all of his surroundings and focuses on the kid he's going to help fix, now. He shouldn't say kid, since the injured guy is probably Steve's age—it's the one with the metal arm. There's a crimson stain on his left flank, growing rapidly, and his skin shines with sweat. He's trying to walk, but the Scandinavian kid, who is freaking _huge_, is taking most of his weight. Tony guesses the big one is fifteen or sixteen, but his size could put him in his early twenties, if Tony didn't know any better.

"Bring him inside," Tony says, totally in his element now that people have to listen to his directions. "Back door's unlocked, but be quiet. Go left down the stairs into the basement; that's where I'll be. I'm going to get some stuff ready."

Tony hurries back inside the house without waiting for an answer, his heart thumping. He knows this is a stupid decision, that this is going to come back and bite him in the ass, but…

…he'll never be strong enough or brave enough or capable enough to turn his back on Obie and Howard; they're all he's ever known, even if it's been horrible, and he doubts he can ever bring himself to leave.

He'll never be strong enough to be a hero.

If these "Avengers" knew what was happening to him, what his father and his uncle did to him when he refused to make weapons for them, they'd do something about it.

Which is why two things become certain to Tony as he set up the spare bed and grabbed his extensive first aid kit.

One: they would never know.

Two: he'd do everything he could to help them, because they were doing what he never could.

…

Tony hisses in sympathy as he peels the shirt away from the wound, the boy—Bucky, he knows now—flinching as he does so. His eyes are firmly on the ceiling, and he's gripping Steve's hand, his other fisted in the sheets.

"Stab wound," Tony says almost to himself, cutting the shirt away from the wound to give him room to work. "Didn't hit any organs, but you've lost a lot of blood."

"Can you do a transfusion?" Steve asks, looking concerned. "I'm the same blood type."

"I'm thirteen," Tony says, giving him an unimpressed look.

A blush creeps into his cheeks and he looks away. Clint snorts.

Tony examines the wound and gives Bucky a small warning before gently prodding the area beside it. Bucky flinches and stiffens against the bed, but relaxes quickly, his mouth set in a hard line. Natasha flinches from the side, looking like she's about to spring forward, but she restrains herself.

Tony's pretty grateful for that.

"I can clean it out and stitch it up," Tony says, focused on the wound, not looking at the others. "It should help prevent infection and help it heal faster. I know fighting crime is kind of in your job description, but he needs to take it easy for a few weeks."

Tony reaches beside him and starts sterilizing a needle, then grabs a bottle of prescription pills he'd gotten once after a surgery. Howard had gone too far and broken his ulna in half.

He shakes out two and hands them to Bucky. "They're just heavy pain meds. They're under my name, but they're generic. It'll take the edge off while I stitch you up."

Bucky eyes the pills warily, then looks at Tony with distrust and a bit of resentment. That's rude, considering Tony's saving his life. Tony gives him his best bitch face. "Or you can stay awake and fully conscious while I give you thirty odd stitches, pal. It's up to you."

"You could be a little nicer about it, asshole," Clint says, his arms crossed. He looks two inches away from throttling Tony. "I know you're probably not used to needing actual social skills, seeing as the only people you talk to are the ones who're just after your money, but your bedside manner is a little lacking."

Tony hides how much the words sting and sets the pills on the table beside Bucky's head. Clint isn't wrong, but it's not like he had much of a say about what family he was born into. "Well, you're no Mary Poppins yourself, Katniss," Tony spits.

Bruce, the one who looks like he's all of ten but is apparently fourteen, snorts into his hand and turns away to hide his shaking shoulders. Thor—the Scandinavian—doesn't even try to be quiet, laughing heartily, throwing his head back.

Oh, geez. "Dude, _shut up_," Tony hisses, running to the bottom of the stairs and listening intently. He raises a hand when someone starts to ask a question, listening, making sure nothing is moving and no one is coming towards the stairs.

He breathes a quiet sigh of relief after two minutes of complete silence, and trudges back to the vigilantes. "Could you please, _please_, be a littler quieter, big guy?" Tony asks, picking up the sterilized needle and threading it.

Thor nods, looking properly chastised. Bruce, looking comical beside his hulking figure, slips an arm around his back, and Thor tucks him to his side almost instinctively with a smile.

"Thought you said you were alone," Natasha asks, eyes piercing and wary.

"Well, you're not very observant, then," Tony says, tying off the needle and setting it to the side. He grabs a clean rag and starts gingerly wiping the crusted blood away from the enflamed wound. Bucky flinches, but remains still. "I said everyone else here was either asleep or passed out drunk, but they're not _deaf_."

She scoffs and turns away, pacing.

The more blood Tony cleans away, the more certain he is that the wound is infected. "Stay here," he says to them, placing the rag in the now-pink bowl of water and snapping the rubber gloves off. "I'm going to get some antibiotics; the wound's infected. I doubt anyone will, but if anyone comes down the stairs—I dunno, just—say you're my friends and I invited you over. Unless it's my dad, they'll buy it."

Tony isn't sure about that, but he goes anyways, relatively certain no one's going to discover them.

He grabs the bottle of Augmentin from under a loose floorboard in his room, taking a moment to gaze at the precious keepsakes he doesn't want his father or Obie to find—a picture of him, a girl named Pepper, and his best friend Rhodey (both of whom his father had forced him to cut off all contact with)— and his mother's wedding ring, as well as a few other secret treasures from over the years. There are also the medications he knows he'll need sometimes—Hoard has a bad habit of taking whatever he finds, and sometimes it's prescriptions that Tony kind of needs.

He crouches there for a moment, running a hand through his hair and staring at the bottle in his hand. He picks up his mother's wedding ring and touches it to his forehead. "Mom," he whispers, feeling his hands shake. "I hope I'm doing the right thing."

Because he really does. He doesn't know these people. They seem good enough, no matter how horribly the media portrays them, but he's trusted enough people who've turned on him to know that it's only a matter of time.

He'll help them, but he won't trust them.

On a whim, he stops by his private kitchen and snags some bread, a tub of peanut butter and a separate one of jelly, some water bottles, and a family sized bag of chips. He puts it all into a bag and lugs it down the stairs.

America's most wanted are still in the same positions, though Tony notices with a bit of relief that the pain pills are gone from the table, and Bucky looks a little more relaxed. He hands the bag of food to Clint, who takes it, looking surprised.

"Knock yourself out," Tony says, snapping some fresh gloves on and handing the antibiotics to Steve. "It's not poisoned."

"Is it drugged?" Natasha asked, taking the bag from Clint before he could dive in.

"Are you _kidding_ me?" Tony asks, because he's really getting tired of trying to be nice to these people.

"I'm sorry," Steve says, and Tony turns to face him. Steve looks tired; his shoulders are hunched in, and his face is creased in worry. "We just can't take any chances. We appreciate everything you're doing for us."

Tony knows he can't really blame them, but that doesn't stop him from being pissed off. "Fine," he grumbles, plucking everything out of the bag. He shows Natasha that the bag of chips and the bottles of water are completely sealed and untampered with, then makes himself and peanut butter jelly sandwich and takes a big bite.

"See? Still alive and coherent," Tony says sarcastically, crossing back to Bucky and preparing to stitch him up. "How're you feeling, Robo-Cop?"

Bucky sends him a glare, but it doesn't have any real heat. The drugs are working, then.

He notices out of the corner of his eye that the other four are digging into the food with no small amount of gusto, and he feels a twinge of guilt in his gut. Sometimes Howard and Obie take away his food as a punishment, but never to the point of starving. He knows these guys probably don't know when the next time they're going to eat is.

"Here," Bruce says as he comes over, handing a sandwich to Steve. His own is already half gone.

"Thanks, kiddo," Steve says with a small, warm smile. Bruce blushes as Steve ruffles his hair and puts an arm around his shoulders, pulling him close. Bruce relaxes instantly, melting into his side. Until then, Tony hadn't noticed how tense he'd been.

Tony watches silently, getting the suture equipment ready. Something aches in his chest, and he's reminded of just how much he misses his mother.

"This isn't going to be fun," Tony warns Bucky as he sits beside the bed, getting ready to make the first stitch. "Try to stay awake. You need to eat some after I'm done so the antibiotics won't make you sick."

After watching him warily for a moment, Steve squeezes his hand, and Bucky finally gives a sharp nod. Bruce sits on the bed at the end, next to Bucky's feet, and rests his hands on Bucky's shin in support. Bucky twitches him a small smile.

Tony ignores the ache growing in his chest, dismissing it as the ribs he still hasn't wrapped.

Tony ends up needing thirty-two stitches. By the time he's done, Bucky is panting, sweating, and two steps away from cursing him out, but the bleeding has mostly stopped. Tony cleans and disinfects the wound, then says, "Would one of you mind making him a sandwich? I want to get something in his stomach before he takes this."

"What brand are the antibiotics?" Natasha asks, slipping over to pluck the bottle from his hands.

"Augmentin," he responds as Steve props Bucky up enough to eat the sandwich Clint has made. "And before you start screaming to high heaven about how it's not sealed, I took some a while ago and never finished them."

Natasha's eyebrow twitches.

Tony sighs, grabbing a water bottle and handing it to Thor. "Make sure he takes two. You can take the bottle with you; he'll need to take them for a few days. It's not a full course, but it'll help his body heal on its own."

"Where are you going?" Bruce asks. Tony realizes it's the first time he's spoken to him, and the guy's voice is small.

"To get you guys some stuff to sleep in," he says, "and on. I don't want you using the guest bedrooms; depending on how late you stay tomorrow morning, the servants may find you. No one comes down here. I know we have some air mattresses and sleeping bags somewhere…"

"Why would a rich kid like you need air mattresses and sleeping bags?" Clint scoffs, folding his arms in a challenge.

Tony freezes for just a moment. "My mother. She used to take me camping."

"Not anymore, though?" Clint continues, scathing. "What, did you get too old for it? Now that you're a big rich boy who can play with the socialites, you quit the boy scouts? Bet Mom was disappointed."

"Clint," Steve says in a warning tone, his eyes hard. "Tony's being kind enough to let us stay here, and he's done a lot more for us than we could ever ask. Don't do this." Steve turns to Tony. "I'm sorry. Clint's, uh…kind of a loose cannon." He shrugs apologetically, a small, remorseful smile on his face.

"You think?" Natasha asks, smirking.

The anger doesn't leave Clint's eyes, but he backs down, uncrossing his arms and wandering to Bucky's bedside, where they all have inevitably gathered. Bucky's breathing is much better, and a small smile graces his lips as he looks up and sees himself surrounded by family.

Meanwhile, Tony is struggling to breathe.

He not unfamiliar with people his age (or close) resenting him for his wealth and his lavish lifestyle. He's used to it. He's used to the hunger in the adults' eyes as the shake his hand and wonder how they can use him to put a stake in the family will, and he's used to the kids pushing him away for having more than they do.

He's used to that. But this? No one can be used to this.

"For the record, asshole," Tony says from the bottom of the steps, his face hidden in the shadows. Out of his periphery, he sees six heads snap his way. He doesn't like telling people, doesn't like the look in their eyes after he says it, but he can't quite forgive the jab. "I stopped camping because my mother died."

The air freezes in thick tension, and a small "Oh" is the only answer he receives.

He disappears up the stairs with a quick, "I'll get the mattresses."

His hands are shaking.

…

Tony doesn't sleep that night.

He can't stop thinking about the fact that he's letting six of the most wanted people in the country, wrongfully or no, crash in his basement. He ends up tinkering for several hours before he finally forces himself to scan the reports Obie left for him.

Tony helps with the weapons business, no matter how much he hates it. But he draws the line at actual weapons. Instead, he develops mainly surveillance technology and defensive equipment. His current, most engrossing project is a titanium alloy impenetrable to bullets that he can melt down and craft into a robotic suit with an interface system.

It's slow going. He knows he's not going to have his current assignments finished in time, and he knows what that means. Over the years, though, it's become normal. He can't bring himself to care much, anymore.

He leans back from his desk, glancing at the picture of he and his mother in her garden. He was only six or seven at the time, but she's holding him, kissing his forehead, and her eyes are open and so, so happy and bright.

And Tony is grinning like a maniac.

He sighs. It feels like a lifetime ago, but it was only two years ago that she died in the "accident."

A tremor of anger goes through his body as he crosses his room to his walk-in closet. He goes to the back-left corner and shoves his clothes aside, removing one of the rich oak panels from the wall. There's a safe, there, something his old butler, Jarvis—and the closest thing to a father he'd ever had—bought for him under his father's nose.

The passcode is his mother's birthday. He knows it's too obvious, but that's why there's a second and third layer of security—a thumbprint and a retinal scan.

He removes a thick file and flips through it, reorienting himself with the work he's been doing for two straight years.

It's his file on his mother. They say she committed suicide, but Tony knows it's a lie. Tony knows that someone killed her, and did a very good job of making it look real.

Most of the reports, he'd been able to get himself with some hacking tricks. There are things not online, though, that he needs as well, and he's been pulling favor after favor, spending more money than he's probably allowed, doing everything he can to follow the trail. Recently, though, he's gotten nothing.

He stops on a picture of his mother. It's the autopsy photo. The sheet is pulled up to her thin, naked shoulders, and her face is pale and cold and still.

God, he misses her. He hates himself for looking at it for so long.

He ends up putting it back without doing any real research; the day's events are weighing on him, and he just can't take it right now.

He goes to his mother's garden. It's almost sunrise. Ever since she died, on the nights he can't sleep, he goes to watch it, and he's reminded of her.

When he gets to his little alcove, he's surprised to see that he's not alone.

"You really shouldn't be out here," Tony says, satisfied when Steve jumps and turns to face him. "And you definitely shouldn't be out here if you're that easy to sneak up on."

Steve twitches a smile. His shoulders are heavy with exhaustion and there are bags under his eyes. "Sorry. Been a long few days." He turns to Tony, his eyes so determined and earnest Tony feels like Steve thinks he's just ended world hunger. "Thank you, Tony. I…I don't know what we would've done if you hadn't helped us. If he'd died…"

Steve can't bring himself to say it, and Tony doesn't let him. "Yeah, whatever. It's fine."

Steve eyes him strangely, but Tony ignores him and wanders past him. He stops when Steve calls out, "I really am sorry about what Clint said earlier. About…about your mother."

Tony stops, but shakes it off, watching as the first wisps of pink peek over the horizon beyond the trees. "It's fine. He's not the first, and he won't be the last."

Tony doesn't turn to see his expression, because he knows he won't like it.

"Can I ask you a question?"

Tony closes his eyes and sighs deeply, looking towards the sky for patience. This isn't the relaxing moment of peace he's pictured. "What, Rogers?"

"Why are you helping us?"

Tony does look at Steve, then, and Steve's on the defensive again. His shoulders are set and his jaw is tight, his eyes critical and cautious.

"I don't know what you could possibly want from us," he says, guarded. "And I know you said it was because you were bored, but I don't buy it. A bored kid doesn't let six criminals into their house and treat their injuries and feed them for fun. So…what do you want?"

Tony crosses his arms. Looking at Steve, having a conversation like this, he doesn't really feel thirteen. He doesn't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing, though. "I don't want anything from you."

Steve looks frustrated. He runs a hand through his hair and turns away, muttering to himself. Dropping his hands, turning back around, Tony can tell he's not happy with that answer. "Then why?"

_Because you're more of a hero than I'll ever be_, Tony thinks wryly, a wry smile coming over his face as he turns his face away, hoping Steve will think it's a trick of the shadows. _Because no matter how smart I am, I'm only thirteen, and I can't do anything. You're sixteen and you're already saving people, and I'm not strong enough to even save myself_.

"Because you're not criminals," Tony says finally, glancing behind him to check on the sun's progress. The purple is turning red, now. It's almost time. "At least, not to me. I've seen the news: you don't kill, and you do your research on your targets. You don't make mistakes. Every single person you've attacked or exposed or blackmailed have all abused someone…usually kids." Steve's face is unreadable. Tony looks at him. Really looks at him, with none of the sarcasm he usually uses, and says, "Those kids need you, even if the grown ups say you're doing it wrong."

Steve's silent for a moment, his eyes wide. He opens his mouth, then closes it again, looking at a loss for words. Tony rolls his eyes and turns away, his sore ribs making themselves known again as he crouches by a dying rose bush. He'll have to remember to water them later.

"Thank you," Steve says, sounding suspiciously emotional. Tony gives him the benefit of not looking and simply nods.

After another moment of silence, he says, "You don't act like a thirteen-year-old."

Tony barks a laugh. "That's what happens when you grow up around adults, Captain."

There's a pause, then— "What did you call me?"

"Captain," Tony says unashamedly, hiding a wince as he stands, wiping his hands on his sweatpants. "You're the leader of your boy band, aren't you? You're the Captain of your rag tag group of somewhat American heroes."

Steve chuckles, swiping a hand over his hair. "Well, I guess so…"

"Now shut up," he says, sitting on the steps of the deck, beckoning Steve to sit beside him. "This is the best part."

Tony's chosen a good day to watch the sunrise. The sky is a color palette straight out of an art show. There are minute colors he can never name mixed in with the predominant strokes of bright purple and deep reds and oranges that spread like fire slowly over the sky. The two sit there for several minutes watching the day arrive. When the sun finally clears the tree tops, Steve lets out a breath of air.

"That was…something else," Steve says, and Tony can only nod.

Tony smiles and closes his eyes for just a moment. This, right here. This is the closest he ever feels to his mother, watching the sun rise over her garden.

It never lasts, but it's enough to keep him sane.

"Come on," Tony says, standing. "I want to check Bucky's wound."

…

All in all, Tony thinks, it's a lot better than it should be.

After just one dose of the antibiotic, the infection is almost gone, and after just six or seven hours, the wound is scabbed over.

"I'm not saying I'm not still a genius," Tony mumbles, wetting a rag to clean the wound once more before they leave, "but someone needs to explain this to me."

Bucky snorts. He's well enough to sit up, now, and Bruce sits beside him, tucked under his arm. When Tony had first come in, Bruce had been curled against Bucky's side, Bucky's arm secure around him, both sleeping soundly. Thor had been dozing in a chair next the Bucky's head, his snores light as his head hung on his chest, his arms crossed. Clint had been on one of the mattresses in one of the sleeping bags, and Natasha had been sitting guard, watching over them.

They were all awake, now, though, and all of them looked up at Tony's comment.

"It's a side effect of the testing they did on him," Steve said darkly, putting a protective hand on Bucky's shoulder. "He heals faster than normal."

"You could've mentioned that," Tony mutters, cranky from being awake for so long.

No one responds. Tony finishes cleaning the wound and tapes white gauze over it, then wraps his stomach with bandages to keep pressure on the wound.

"Well, I'm not sure exactly how fast you heal," Tony says, pulling a smaller first aid kit out of his large one and putting a few clean rolls of gauze, a few bandages, a roll of medical tape, the antibiotics, and the pain medication inside, along with some assorted band-aids and anti-bacterial ointment. "But change that tonight and tomorrow morning, then every 24 hours after that until it's closed up. Take the rest of the antibiotics, even if the infection stays away. If you run out and it's still bad, use some of the ointment."

He hands the kit to Natasha, who eyes him for a moment. "We can't take anything else from you."

"You aren't. I'm giving it to you." Tony says, all but shoving the kit in her hands. "I'm not sweating the cash, Anna Chapman."

Obviously, she knows exactly who that is, because she looks _pissed_.

"Just one hit, Steve," she mutters, handing Bruce the first aid kit and stalking around the bed. "Just one, then I'd be satisfied."

Tony can't hold in a snort.

"Anyways," Tony says, and he really doesn't know why he's dreading this moment. "You should go soon. People are going to start getting up, and then it'll be harder to sneak you out."

Steve nods, squaring his shoulders. "We'll leave in ten minutes. Buck, you wanna try walking around some?"

Tony pads quietly to the stairs as the six standing vigilantes converge on their friend, and Tony sees Bucky faintly blush under all the attention, pushing them away with half-hearted exasperation.

Huh. For some reason, that ache in his chest is back.

…

Tony may have gone a little overboard, judging by the looks on everyone's faces, but he's not sorry.

"Tony," Steve says, looking at the three backpacks Tony's just dumped in front of them, panting from the exertion. "No. You've helped us already, we can't—"

"Zip it, Golden Boy," Tony says decisively, still catching his breath. "One has food and water, one has clothes, one has some rolled up sleeping bags. You'll have to share. Not Big Guy," he says, nodding at Thor, who's supporting a bit of Bucky's weight. Tony's happy to see he's mostly walking on his own, though. "That would be a mess."

Steve's eyes are grateful beyond what Tony deserves, and it makes him uncomfortable.

Thor gives him a nod, a genuine smile on the guy's face, and while Natasha regards him critically, she nods, too. She comes forward and shoulders one of the backpacks, sticking her hand out. "Thanks for all your help, Stark."

"Oh, God," he says dramatically, but he takes her hand. "I'd rather be called Anthony. Don't call me Stark."

She smirks and steps back, and Tony realizes it's the closest she's come to a smile.

"Sorry about what I said about your mom," Clint says, looking sheepish as he picks up one of the other backpacks. "You're not so bad, little guy."

"Call me 'little guy' again and I'll shove you off my deck. What is it with you guys and nick names?"

"Says the one who's dropped 'Robo-Cop', 'Anna Chapman', 'Golden Boy', and 'Katniss' in about eight hours," Bucky mutters, and Tony won't admit it, but he's got a point.

"Um…" Bruce comes forward, timidly grabbing the remaining backpack. He struggles under the weight for a moment before swinging it around his shoulders, grabbing the straps, and standing up as straight as he can before the added weight can drag him down. "Thank you. For helping us, but especially for Bucky."

"Okay, this is getting ridiculous," Tony says, trying to hide the blush ghosting to his cheeks. "One collective thank you is enough. We don't all need to have a moment."

That draws a couple chuckles. Despite Bruce's protests, Steve effortlessly plucks the backpack from his shoulders and swings it onto his own, ruffles his hair, then sticks his hand out to Tony. "Just one more, then."

Tony looks at his hand and takes it, feeling a lot older than he really is. "You're welcome. Don't get caught."

Steve knows what he means, Tony can tell. _Don't get caught. If you do, nobody'll be there for those kids_.

What's he really thinking is: _Nobody'll be there for me_.

"We'll do our best."

They start to walk away, and the ache in Tony's chest is almost unbearable, now. He watches them as they cross the garden, and he knows, he _knows_ it's a bad idea, but he sees the sun still rising and reflecting the small lily pond that he and his mother used to sit by…and he knows she'd want him to do this.

"Hey," he says, and they stop and turn.

He clears his throat and tries to look uncaring, shoving his hands in his pockets and looking away. "If you're ever out this way, and, uh…need a place to crash…you know where to find me."

Instead of looking surprised, Steve smiles and nods. "We may take you up on that."

And like a dream he can't quite hold onto, they disappear.

…

Two weeks later, as he flips on the news, Tony can't help but grin as he reads the headline:

"Leader of the Vigilante Group 'Avengers,' Steve Rogers, names himself 'Captain America.'"

**A/N: Wow, look at me starting another story when I already have two in progress! Lol oops. I just really wanted to get this out there.**

**So this story is called Runaways, and it's loosely based off the plot of "To Save My Lost Soul" by Rikki Writinglover. If you haven't read their stuff and you like well-written Tony-centric stories with endless whump and fluff, go check them out, 100%! I PM'ed Rikki and they said I had permission to use their idea, so I'm so hyped to get this out there! It's an idea that's been bouncing around in my head for a while, and I think it's going to be the most complicated story yet. There's going to be a couple main plots and even more subplots. There's going to be action, and mysteries, and friendship, and betrayal, and allllllll the feels. I'm just really excited about it and I'd love to know what you think of the first chapter!**

**A couple things: Not every chapter will be this long. I just wanted to establish the storyline and get through their first interaction.**

**The first few chapters will be filled with time skips of all their interactions covering about two years before we really get into the heart of the plot, so Tony will be older than thirteen for the majority of this story.**

**It takes place in the US, but for the purpose of this fic, the legal age of adulthood is 21. **

**It won't be slash, it'll just be a bunch of highly emotional men and women who love each other a crap ton and are literally willing to do anything for each other okay**

**I don't know for sure what other MCU characters will be coming in, but review or PM me if you have a request, and I'll see what I can do!**

**I'm so excited to really start getting into this! It's going to be pretty long, so depending on how the arcs go, I may end up breaking it into a couple connected stories, but I don't know yet. **

**Please, let me know what you think! I'd love to get some feedback on this before I solidify the plot. But most importantly, I hope you enjoyed! Go check out my bio and my other stories if you have a minute :) Thanks so much!**


	2. Chapter 2

It's been five months, and Tony hasn't heard from them again.

He can't say he isn't disappointed, though he doesn't know why he should be. They don't owe him anything, and it isn't like they promised to come back. He doesn't even know why he wants them to. He's never going to trust them; he promised himself that much.

Tony sighs, the graph paper blurring in front of him, his pencil shaking in his hand. Damn, he can't concentrate like this.

"Anthony," an angry voice asks from the doorway, and Tony immediately stiffens. "Those papers better be finished by tonight, you hear me? Obadiah's coming to get them."

Tony doesn't say anything, just closes his eyes to ease the pounding in his head.

He guesses he blanks out for a minute, because the next thing he knows, Howard is grabbing his arms and throwing him out of his chair. Tony connects with the wood floor and lies there, too stunned to move. After a second of harsh breathing, he pushes himself up on his elbows, the world spinning.

He doesn't know how long he's been awake. Tony messed up a week ago and gave his father incomplete schematics. Howard didn't even take a second look at them, just passed them along to the Board. Apparently, they'd been none too pleased to be given half done projects and took it out on Howard, because that was who they were supposed to be from. Not his thirteen-year-old son.

So Howard takes it out on Tony.

And all Tony can do, really, is take it.

"You _answer_ me when I speak to you," Howard says above him, sturdy and sober and _furious_.

"Why?" Tony says, and he's practically digging his own grave as he pulls himself to his knees using the corner of his desk, his limbs shaking in exhaustion. "It's not like you listen anyways."

Howard and Obadiah are working him double time to get the current projects finished and to design completely new ones to make up for the ones he botched. He messed up on three of them, so they're demanding the three to be completed and the other three to be invented and perfected from scrap.

Tony isn't sure he's slept more than maybe ten hours in the past six days, and he can't do it much longer.

Howard scoffs, and Tony flinches. Sober Howard is much more terrifying than drunk Howard. Drunk Howard is a loud, angry, incoherent mess that will eventually drink himself into oblivion for the night.

Sober Howard is calm, cool, calculating, and every bit the sadistic genius the tabloids exalt.

Howard crouches down to Tony's level, but since he's kneeling, curling in on himself as he anticipates the phantom blows he can feel on his skin, Howard still towers over him. "You speak to me like that again," he says, confident and sure while Tony is trying very hard not to keel over, "I'll beat you like a drum until you can't even _move_, you understand me? You'll be eating out of a damn _straw_ for six months."

Tony swallows. Looks down. Nods.

Because he doesn't deserve heroes.

Howard backhands him, and his head glances off the corner of the desk he's leaning on as he goes down. All he can do is lie there as the world stops spinning.

Howard lets himself out.

…

Four days later, it's Steve Rogers he hates the most.

He's finally done with all of the old and new projects, and all he wants to do is sleep. They've been checked and double checked and are safely stored in Obadiah's hands, on their way to the Board, and he doesn't have anything pressing for a day or two. He's so, so tired. He can't think or function or really even walk straight, because he falls into bed, the TV playing a random news station in the background, and he's _so desperate_ to sleep. He's almost there, too, when he hears:

"—outside a bar last night in Boston, Avengers' leader 'Steve Rogers,' self-named 'Captain America,' has been forcibly taken into custody by federal officers and is currently being detained in a maximum-security prison until he can be shipped to a juvenile detention center capable of containing him. Sixteen-year-old Rogers and his associates have been—"

After a week and a half of no sleep, he's wide awake.

Tony sits up and bites his lip, looking at the screen. The warm covers he'd been nestled in fall from his body, but the chill is delayed from his focus on the screen. Someone has apparently sold Steve's mugshot to the press, because it's the one presumably taken when he was captured. There's a bruise on his left cheek and under his jaw.

His jaw is set, his eyes defiant. His blonde hair is streaked with dirt and a little blood.

He looks like he's not afraid in the slightest, but if Tony knows anything about him, he knows that's a lie.

Tony narrows his eyes in consideration. He could do nothing. There are still five of them out there, but…they'll be caught eventually, too, he's sure. They're stronger together.

He wants to help.

He wants to feel like he's doing something right.

He sighs, passively hating Steve Rogers with every fiber of his being as he drags his exhausted body out of bed and towards his phone, watching the TV for any more developments.

It picks up on the second ring. "Anthony?" Jarvis asks, sounding tired. Jarvis is the only one allowed to call him Anthony. Tony looks out the window; he hasn't realized how late it's had gotten. "Are you alright? It's the middle of the night."

Jarvis is still in contact with Tony after all these years, even against Howard and Obadiah's wishes. He'd been the one to care for him when his mother way away, and he'd been the father Howard hadn't been…since Tony could remember. When Tony's mother died, Obadiah had convinced Howard to fire Jarvis.

Tony remembers like it was yesterday. He'd read up and researched events like that: Howard and Obadiah were trying to take away his support system, make him completely dependent on them, and they'd snatched up the opportunity after his mother's accident. Then, they'd have him at his beck and call as long as they wanted.

Tony remembers being numb, because he was still grieving his mother. Jarvis had given him a cell phone with his number, one that only he could use, and Tony remembers being so relieved that he wouldn't be alone.

Jarvis has been the one constant in his entire life, and he's about the repay the man by throwing him into a warzone.

"Yeah," he says, aware of just how horrible his voice sounds. He looks around the room at his bare walls, settling on the picture of him and his mother, and he sighs. "I need a favor."

…

Steve Rogers is afraid.

He'll never let them see that. The guards who jeer and taunt him, the inmates who tease him, the disdainful looks from the ones who don't speak…he'll never give in to their words or glares. He'll walk with his head held high and his jaw set.

But on the inside, he can't help but feel afraid.

This particular mission had been, for lack of a better term, FUBAR from the start. Bucky's injury is well past healed, but he's still on surveillance until Steve is absolutely certain all danger of infection has passed. Bucky hasn't been happy about it, and Steve knows he's overreacting, but watching him bleed to death was…debilitating for Steve. He had been planted on the roof opposite the filthy dive bar they'd been scoping out, where the manager allegedly beat his wife and daughter.

He'd also been complicit in gang activity, drug smuggling, weapons smuggling, money laundering, and a hundred other misdemeanors and crimes that Steve didn't care to list. The man was bad news, and the innocent people around him were being hurt because of it.

They were supposed to go in after closing, teach him a mild lesson in humanity, and drop him a block from the police station with an anonymous tip.

It hadn't worked out that way.

Bucky had called in to him over their improvised communications system (Bruce truly was a little genius) saying that someone had tipped off the police, and they had four squad cars inbound. Bruce was safe with Bucky, and Natasha and Clint took cover easily from their positions. Thor, who'd been stationed around back, had barely dodged one of the squad cars, parkouring himself onto the roof, and Steve is actually really mad he missed that.

Steve? He had been smack in the middle of the street when the squad cars had pulled in from both sides, boxing him in.

Now? He's sitting here, in cuffs he could easily break, surrounded by people who, in lesser numbers, he could easily outmatch.

But he doesn't want to risk it until the others are safely away from the whole thing.

He knows they'll be coming up with a plan to rescue him. He knows they won't leave him, but he's afraid of what'll happen if they try and fail. He doesn't want them to end up in here.

Steve closes his eyes and tries to steady his hands.

He hears the key turn in the lock of the cell door, and through the barred window he can see three guards.

They come inside. Two of them take his arms and the other kneels in front of him, attaching the chain from his wrists to the one around his ankles, and he's pulled to stand up. They escort him out, and he tries not to feel shame as he shuffles awkwardly, the chains too short to accommodate his stature.

"Where are we going?" He asks quietly, but firmly. He doesn't want to show weakness.

But he's nervous.

"Your lawyer just showed up," one of them says, scoffing. "Not sure you've got much of a case, but hey. Give it your best shot."

Steve doesn't offer a response.

His hands are handcuffed to the steel table in front of him, and he's left staring at himself in what he's sure is a one-way mirror. The bruises on his face are still fresh, but they're slowly healing. He'd made the mistake of trying to fight back, at first, but quickly realized he was too outnumbered to do so safely.

He clenches his hands. He doesn't kill. None of them do.

That was one of their first conditions when they started this whole thing.

The door opens, and he turns to his left. It's a tall, thin, older man in a nice suit with a briefcase. He has thinning hair with gray peppered in on the sides, and his eyes are green and…kind. Steve is surprised to see a defense attorney wearing such a gentle expression.

"Good evening, Mr. Rogers," the man says, sitting down across from him and opening his briefcase. "Or should I say good morning, since it's the middle of the night. I'm your defense attorney, Edward James. I'll be discussing your current circumstances and your options thus far. Now, listen very carefully: I have your best interests in mind, and I'm going to do everything I can to help you. Is this clear?"

Something about how the words are phrased and spoken piques Steve's interest, and he straightens up, nodding.

Mr. James smiles again, and opens his briefcase. "Now. Illegal or not, as I am having a private conversation with my client, I have reason to believe this conversation is being recorded, since you're such a high-profile prisoner." Mr. James slips a piece of paper towards him, and it's folded in half. Mr. James dips his head and says, seriously, "That's for your eyes only, Mr. Rogers."

Steve understands his meaning—hold it so the cameras can't read what's on it—but he's confused as to what it could possibly say. With a building tension in his chest, his bound hands struggle to comfortably open the paper. He finally does.

He doesn't think he's ever been so relieved in his life, reading the printed words.

_Idiot. I thought you guys were professionals. I'm suing for false advertising._

_Also, didn't I specifically tell you not to get caught?_

His relief cracks his stoic façade for a moment, and he lets out a breathy laugh of utter relief. He folds the paper carefully and slides it back to Mr. James, who smiles, understanding Steve's relief.

"Now," Mr. James says, leaning forward. "Listen very carefully…"

…

Tony yawns at his laptop, downing the dregs of his third cup of coffee, pouting when he finds it empty.

Really, God bless Jarvis. The man didn't ask but two or three questions, and that was just about what he was supposed to do. He'd been at Steve's holding cell in under three hours. Tony had been frantically messing with the real defense lawyer's personnel system to make sure she wouldn't show up to her scheduled appointment, but now he was free to plan the escape.

He really doesn't know why he's going this far. Helping them while one of them had been bleeding out was one thing…but helping the leader escape from prison?

Tony could go to jail. For a good long while, even if he was young. Everybody knows how smart he is, and he'd be tried as an adult and shipped off to who knows where.

Or—the worse option—he'd be put on parole, or put into some kind of program, and put on house arrest. And Howard and Obadiah would find out what he'd done.

Tony shivers just thinking about.

Hacking the police station's security system to obtain Steve's whereabouts had been the easy part. The maximum-security prison, however, had better firewalls, and he's reluctantly impressed with the lines of code that kept pushing him back. It wasn't elegant in the slightest—just a choppy string of lines spewed out of a formula with personal touches added every few characters—but it got the job done, and it takes him almost twenty-five minutes to gain complete access.

He syncs his laptop to the small TV on the wall, divided into segments with the security cameras. He finally skims through everything and finds the one that feeds into the interrogation room with Steve, buried behind the main hallways and cafeteria and holding cells. Steve has his head down slightly, his expression neutral, but Tony can see his tense jaw.

Tony sighs. How did they ever get along before him?

He sits up straighter when Jarvis walks in, watching closely as Steve reads the message and breathes a sigh of relief. Jarvis gives him the instructions and then gives a short, purposeful look to the security camera.

Tony cuts the first camera.

This is a delicate thing. Normally, he'd prefer to just go in guns blazing and ask questions later, but he doesn't really have the means of doing so; this has to be nice and smooth. He cuts the second on about fifteen seconds later. They need to think he's an amateur, hacking every camera one at a time. They'll have their best tech guys hop on to stop him, and that's what Tony wants; instead of spending his time doubling trying to sneak Steve and Jarvis out _and_ trying to repel whoever tries to push him out of the system, he's just going to trap the person in his own program. They're going to chase a false trail for thirty minutes, while he wipes out their whole system, and then he's going to let them out, no harm done—minus one prisoner, of course.

Ah…there he is. Their tech person makes his first move, and Tony wants to laugh at how easily he traps him in his program, but he can't summon the extra energy.

With that done, in one fell swoop, Tony cuts the electricity, all the cameras, the air conditioning, the water…everything.

He isn't stupid, though; that's kind of his trademark. All the keycard access points are still working, because he doesn't really feel like releasing six hundred high security inmates into the wild at the moment. He'll have to unlock them door by door as Steve and Jarvis make their way out, or point them to a keycard.

"This is Officer Nolan, confirmation 620485, to control. Lights are out, inmates are panicking. Keycards still working. I'm getting similar situations from all my guys. What should we do? Over."

Tony's also brilliant in several other ways, because he helped himself to the main radio channels and has it broadcasting through his Bluetooth speaker. Glancing at Steve's cell, Steve's looking around, confused. The lights are dimmed, but he hacked into that room's circuits and kicked on the dim emergency lights, so they can see enough to move around. Jarvis is packing up, getting ready to go, and unfolding a paperclip. Of course, only Tony can see that; all the other cameras are out, and Tony's made sure there's no one watching through the one-way mirror.

Tony patches the radio waves into Jarvis' cell phone and cuts all other feeds in that area, watch on the screen as Jarvis says into the phone, communicating with the Officer:

"Yeah, Officer Nolan, this is control," he says, winking at Steve, who smiles minutely. "Concentrate guards on the prisoner wings and any unsecured doors, over." Tony's cut the camera and all the main electricity in the room, so any bugs planted would have been fried. Tony isn't worried about someone recording the room.

A burst of static. "What about Rogers, sir? Over."

Jarvis looks to the screen, and Tony types quickly, giving him a script. Jarvis scans it quickly and says, "If the keycard lock to the room is still working," which Tony made sure it is, "then just leave one guy and get the rest up front until this is contained. Over."

"Understood, sir, four officers en route now, over."

Tony checks the hallway outside the interrogation room to see four officers jogging offscreen; they appear across the TV, making their way to the front of the prison, slipping through a gated door. There's a lone officer outside the door, scanning the hallway diligently.

Acting as control and telling the group to leave such a high-profile prisoner completely unattended would set off alarm bells in any rational human being, and Tony really doesn't want to have to deal with that.

"Okay, Jarvis," Tony mumbles to himself, typing instructions for Jarvis and watching his face as he reads them. "Time to win an Oscar."

Jarvis looks at the camera he knows Tony is watching through and gives a thumbs up, his warm eyes crinkling in amusement.

Tony, no matter how tired he is, can't help but smile.

Tony watches as Jarvis tells Steve what he's going to do, and Steve nods, standing and getting ready. His hands and feet have been freed thanks to Jarvis' paperclip, and he's rolling his shoulders, getting ready to take down the guard outside.

Jarvis calls Tony on his cell phone and Tony puts it on speaker beside the keyboard. "Hey, Jarvis. I see lots of Tony Awards in your future."

"Yes, Anthony, one of your favorite puns. I should have expected it," he says with a fond smile at the camera, and a look of surprise flits across Steve's face, but he doesn't speak immediately. "So, am I to act like a frantic old man?"

"That's what you are most of the time," Tony offers, checking the security footage to make sure most of the guards are still with the bulk of the prisoners. "The guard will open the door to check things out; Steve, knock him out, take his keycard. The cameras are out right now, so don't worry about that. I'll guide you to the nearest exit. Steve, if worse comes to worse, are you okay with using Jarvis as a fake hostage?"

Tony doesn't want any of this to fall on Jarvis. Sure, they're using a fake identity under a fake law firm, and Jarvis is even wearing a wig, colored contacts, and a bit of plaster makeup to reconfigure his nose and mouth, but Tony still worries.

Jarvis is one of the only people he has left.

Startled at being addressed, Steve says, "Uh, yeah. Y-yeah, I can do that. Tony, what—"

"This is absolutely no time for explanations, Cap," Tony says, his fingers flying across the keyboard. A section of his TV on the wall becomes devoted to the blueprint of the prison with a path lit up. "By the way, I'm also suing for copyright infringement or whatever, because I gave you the idea for your name." Tony watches Steve smile at the floor. "Jarvis, I'll stay with you, but in case something happens, I've sent the directions out of there to your phone. You'll have to delete it quick if they catch you."

Jarvis nods. He runs hands through his hair and upsets his neat suit, appearing flustered, and starts banging on the door as Steve hides to the left, ready to strike as it opens.

"Officer! Officer, what's going on? The lights are out!"

Tony watches on screen as the officer turns to face the door at the noise, an expression of irritation crossing his features. "What? What's going on in there?" The shout is muffled through the door, and Tony can barely understand through the call.

"Officer, I can't see anything! I think I must have fainted when the lights went out; I just woke up, and it's completely dark! I can't see my client!"

Tony snorts a laugh into his hand, and Jarvis rolls his eyes good-naturedly at the camera.

"Alright, stand back, sir," the officer says, rolling his eyes not unlike Jarvis as he fumbles for his keycard, unlocking the door. Jarvis scurries back to let him in. The crosses the threshold, his hand flying to his gun and cursing when he sees the empty seat—

Steve strikes in a blur of movement, wrapping an arm around the guard's throat in a perfect chokehold. The guard splutters for a few seconds, then goes limp. Steve eases him to the ground and quickly plucks the ring of keys—including the keycard—off his belt, handing them to Jarvis.

"Take a left and go down the hallway about four hundred feet," Tony says immediately, his eyes frantically scouring the cameras to make sure everything is running smoothly. "Jarvis, you really missed your calling."

"If I were thirty years younger I may reconsider," Jarvis says, hustling in front of Steve who follows close behind, determined, focused. "However, the opportunity is long since past. Though I appreciate your faith in me."

Tony hums in agreement and says, "You're coming up on a checkpoint, but the guard left to help the others. Scan your way through, then head right. There'll be door at the end of a long hallway that leads to the guards' break room, and through there, you'll hit the lobby. Avoid the lobby; turn right just before then, and you'll find the garage. There's a Silver Chevy with the keys in the visor on the first level, second row from the right; car door code is 1126."

Getting the car there in just a few hours has been the hardest part of the operation. Tony called in a favor with one of the shadier contacts he had—one of the contacts he'd been asking about his mother. It sucked to use up a favor, but Tony doesn't regret it. Yet.

He watches their progress on the monitor, and everything is going smoothly until they enter the garage.

Then it…really could have gone better.

Steve and Jarvis burst into the garage with all the stealth and silence of a damn freight train, effectively alerting every guard gearing up their cars to control the perimeter.

Tony admits, he forgot that the garage was on a separate power grid, for security purposes.

Sleep deprivation will do that to a guy.

"That's on me," Tony says as he frantically cuts the power, leaving the guards floundering for their flashlights as Steve and Jarvis ducked behind one of the cement pillars, dodging bullets. "I take that. My bad."

"Anthony, I have the utmost confidence in you," Jarvis says with a calm voice even as he shrinks a bit when a bullet gouges out a bit of cement beside his head. "But I believe this young man and I would like a bit of a game-plan before we continue."

Steve nods quickly, his throat bobbing. He jerks as a bullet embeds itself in the wall beside him.

"Yeah, okay, yeah, gimme a second," Tony rushes, feeling frazzled as he hacks into the air waves over the prison and searches for cars with Bluetooth. There's maybe a hundred cars in the garage right now; out of those, forty-three have Bluetooth, and that is _definitely_ a number he can work with.

"Okay, I'm going to create a diversion," Tony says, his fingers flying across the keyboard. "I'll set off car alarms leading away from the car we planted, but not all of them are going to check it out. Steve, can you fight?"

Steve shuts his eyes, opening them quickly and nodding. Tony can tell he's scared out of his mind, and he really can't blame the guy, but he's glad Steve is keeping his cool.

"Steve, you've just reclaimed your spot as a professional," Tony says, setting off the first car alarm.

Steve huffs a breathy laugh amongst the chaos.

Tony sees the heads of several of the guards, who are taking cover behind their open squad car doors, whip towards the sound.

Not as many of them leave as he'd like. After silent communication, about half of them pile into their squad cars and tear down the side of the parking garage towards the car alarm, and Tony sets off another one on the second floor to lead them away from the fight.

The other half, seven agents in total, advance silently on the pillar with missing chunks of concrete from the continued assault. Their weapons are held high.

Tony lets out a shaking breath. "You guys are…gonna have to work with me," he says quietly, frantically typing, "because I'm going to improvise."

"No disrespect," Steve says, chancing a glance around the side of the pillar, only to duck back as another bullet just barely misses him, "but…shouldn't this have been…part of the plan? Maybe?"

"Dude, you think I had time to plan much of anything?" Tony asks, two inches away from leaving him for the vultures. "All things considered, I'm doing very well, thank you."

Tony takes stock of his capabilities. The officers are slowly closing in, and Tony doesn't really have many options. The guards have probably radioed for backup already, so more guards are on their way. He needs to get them out of there as quickly as he can, but he only as access to everything technologically and electronically controlled…

Hm. Let's see.

Tony says, "Both of you cover your ears and close your eyes."

They do, and Tony sets off the sprinklers, the fire alarms, the severe weather alarms, the prisoner escape alarms, the damn smoke detectors in the mess—every single alarm in the entire compound is going off, and even through the phone, it's one hell of a racket.

Tony watches as the officers whirl around, confused, frantically speaking into their radios, disoriented by the flashing lights and wailing sirens. Tony waits, waits until every individual is looking at someone else, or at their radio, or at the alarms, and then—

"Go! Go now! Run left as fast as you can; get around the wall! The car will be on the left, third spot from the left. Remember, 1126!"

And they run.

Tony's heart is pounding in fear as they sprint, and Tony needs to give Jarvis a raise. No, Tony needs to give Jarvis a _country_ because God bless the man for putting up with him after all the crazy stuff he's put him through.

Also, God bless them both for actually listening to him and running as fast as they could, because the only glance a guard gets of them is on the very end of their sprint, as they both swing around the side of the structure. A stray bullet glances off the wall. Steve hisses, but his only injury is a graze from a chunk of cement that has popped out, and not the actual bullet.

Jarvis punches in the code quickly and with calm fingers, Steve skidding around to the other side and throwing himself in the passenger seat just as Jarvis swings the car out of the spot. The officers round the corner as one, shooting with a barrage of bullets, yelling for backup. The back-window shatters, and Tony jumps in fear as Jarvis and Steve both throw their heads down. By some utter miracle, neither of them are hit.

Tony's already forcing the gate to lift when Jarvis swerves out of the structure, the barred gate just barely scraping the top of the car. The guards standing outside yell for them to stop, firing more shots, but Jarvis is the best driver Tony's ever had, and in five minutes, they're ten miles away.

"Okay, the cops are about four minutes behind you guys," Tony says over the phone. Tony can't see inside the car anymore, but he can hear Steve's ragged breathing and Jarvis' words of assurance. Tony guesses that Steve is probably terrified. He was watching safely from several miles away, but it was a huge firefight.

"Calm down, Golden Boy," Tony says, feigning nonchalance. "We gotcha. You'll be hitting the road with your dysfunctional boyband in no time."

Steve takes a deep, shaking breath, and lets it out slowly between his teeth. "Thank you. I—_thank you_, Tony. I don't know how I can—how I can _ever_—"

"Shush and save it for when I've _actually_ gotten you to safety."

Steve laughs. "Sounds good, little guy."

"Oh, God," Tony says, groaning in annoyance. "I'm gonna string Clint up by his damn toenails for that. Don't you _dare_ make that stick."

"Would you prefer Wonder Boy?"

Tony almost falls out of his chair. "Did you just…make a _Hercules_ reference at me?"

Steve snorts, and Tony can almost hear him relaxing. "Yeah, but you got it, which makes you as bad as me."

Tony can hear the tires squeal as Jarvis says, "Oh, Anthony was quite enthralled with Disney for a time. Could quote almost any movie. Hercules was a particular favorite, too."

Tony groans, his mouth open in shock. "Jarvis, you're fired."

Jarvis chuckles. "I believe you said yourself that I'm tenured for life, so…"

"I take it back." Scanning their route, Tony focuses his exhausted mind again, saying, "Okay, Jarvis, there's a dirt road coming up on your right; it'll give you a straight shot to the highway. You'll really need to gun it, no matter how sharp the turns are; if they box you in on that road, I can't help you."

Tony really hates feeling helpless, but that's how he feels the entire time they're on that stretch of dirt road. The cops in pursuit are approaching the turnoff that Jarvis took, and Tony feels his heart clench.

"Dammit!" He yells as one car peels off from the others, following the dirt road. "They're onto you. Maybe two minutes behind; I know what a safe driver you are, Jarvis, but this is time to throw driving school out the window, okay?"

Tony can almost feel Jarvis' grin. "I'm not the best for nothing, Anthony."

And Jarvis _drives_.

Tony can hear Steve breathing heavily as the tires squeal, and Tony is almost afraid that the crappy car is going to come apart under all that strain. "Jarvis, I'm buying you a country," he says as he watches the squad car fall further and further behind, finally feeling like they may actually pull this off with everyone in one piece. The car Jarvis and Steve are in is making all sorts of bad decisions on what really is quite an unstable road, but Jarvis makes it work. "Remind me to do that."

Jarvis merely gives a soft laugh, merging onto the highway and blending seamlessly into traffic. "Of course."

Tony finally takes a deep breath, putting his head down on his desk and sighing. "Okay, just…drive for a while. Blend in and hope everyone ignores the fact that you don't have a back windshield and that your car is covered in bullet holes."

"We set up a meeting point," Steve says, his breathing heavy, but he sounds otherwise okay. "Tony, if I give you an approximate location, would you be able to find it?"

_Wonderful. More work_. He _did_ promise to see this through, though, so…what the hell. What's another couple hours? "Okay. Hit me."

Steve gives him the vaguest description he's ever heard, and it takes Tony nearly twenty minutes to narrow it down. Steve confirms the location on Jarvis' cell phone, and then it's just a matter of Tony waiting for them to get there.

The rest of the ride is silent. Tony's about to ask what's up when Jarvis says softly into his phone, "He's asleep."

"Oh," Tony responds. "I wondered why he wasn't calling me names anymore."

Jarvis chuckles, then Tony can almost hear him sober up over the phone. "Anthony…Tony…you know I'll always help you, with whatever you need, and I'm very proud of you for wanting to help these young people. But…" Tony braces himself. "Are you sure you're making the right decision?"

Tony breathes out, sighing and leaning back. "Are you sure he's asleep?"

"Well, if he's not, he's a very good actor," Jarvis says, his voice muffled as he glances over to the sleeping figure beside him. "I'm sure the day's events have taken quite a toll on him."

Tony sighs. "Yeah, I guess. I just…they're doing good things, Jarvis. Things that I wish I could be able to do. They're helping people. Kids. Like…like me, who can't fight back."

Jarvis breathes out. "You know you can always come to me, Tony. I have contacts—"

"It's too dangerous," he says immediately. "It's too dangerous. They'll know it was you, and they'll find me within a day, you know they will."

Tony can almost imagine the tense of Jarvis' jaw, the tightening of his fingers on the steering wheel. "I hate seeing you suffer."

Tony closes his eyes. His exhaustion is making it hard to reign in his emotions, and he feels tears gather in his eyes. He's so, so tired. "I know. I'm sorry."

Jarvis gives a bitter laugh. "It is light years away from being your fault, little master."

Tony smiles at the old name. He clears his throat. "Your next turn is in half a mile, to the left. There should be the warehouse Steve was talking about on your right, but across from that there's a supermarket that closed down a while ago, and it's abandoned now. Park there and leave the car; I'll loop the cameras while you two walk to the warehouse."

Jarvis gives an affirmative answer, though Tony knows he isn't happy with how the conversation ended.

Tony sighs. His adrenaline is crashing, and no matter how much coffee he's had, his body is craving sleep. His vision is wavering at the edges, his upper body swaying in his seat, and he has to grip the edge of the desk to steady himself.

"Anthony?" Jarvis' voice sounds worried, and Tony absently realizes that he's parking the car in front of the supermarket. "Are you okay?"

Tony realizes he's breathing heavily and says, "Y-yeah, I just…I need to sleep."

Jarvis' voice is instantly like ice. "How long have they been working you?"

Tony swallows and shuts his eyes. "I dunno. Maybe…ten days? Eleven? I just finished when I heard about Steve."

"Go to sleep, little master," Jarvis says softly, and Tony can hear him getting out of the car. "I'll take care of them. I have your instructions, and I believe we've shaken off the authorities; just leave the rest to me."

Tony wants to cry. He wants to cry because no matter how much work he does or how adult he tries to act and appear, he's only thirteen and it's so rare for him to hear someone assure him that they'll take care of something for him. Besides chores, he does everything for himself, and sometimes, it's more than he can handle.

"Thank you," he says in a broken whisper, his voice trembling. He shuts down everything on his laptop and quickly wipes any traces of his involvement, resetting the electricity and everything at the maximum-security prison, exactly the way it was before. "For…for everything."

"Nothing to thank me for, Anthony," Jarvis says, and Tony hears the wind whipping at his jacket. "Sleep now. I'll call you later."

Tony trudges to his bed. "Goodnight," he says, falling into his bed, clumsily setting the phone in the nightstand drawer, his trembling fingers barely able to clasp the switch to turn off the lamp.

Tony falls asleep almost immediately, just as the sun starts to peek through the windows.

…

Steve opens his eyes when Jarvis steps out of the car, still on the phone with Tony.

Needless to say, he doesn't like what he's hearing, and he makes a mental note to start investigating Tony Stark as a side project. Jarvis and Tony were using pronouns all through their conversation, so Steve isn't exactly sure who's hurting him…but Steve's going to start with the father. Tony's…an amazingly capable person with a hidden kindness that Steve can never repay. He's…a good kid, and the thought of him suffering makes Steve sick.

He doesn't hear the rest of the conversation, but he knows when Jarvis knocks on his window that it's as good a time as any to pretend to wake up. He blinks heavily, stretching his sore muscles, yawning widely—and none of that is an act. The day has exhausted him, and he's so ready to feel safe again, surrounded by his family.

He steps out of the car and nods across the street. "That's the warehouse." He pauses, wondering if he's overstepping, but says, "Would you…like to come with me? The others are going to want to say thank you. I mean, for helping me—"

"Thank you, Mr. Rogers, but I must decline," Jarvis said with a kind smile. "Anthony has gone to bed; he had…a project, and he hasn't slept much over the past few days." Steve remembers that bit of the conversation and has no problem finding the bitterness in Jarvis' eyes. "And I wouldn't want to scare the others; they don't know me, and despite my help, I know it would probably put them on edge."

He gives a gently smile and says, "I'm glad that you're safe, Mr. Rogers, and for what it's worth…I think you're doing good work." He holds out his hand. There's a glint in his eye, and Steve would wonder what it meant, had he not just eavesdropped on their conversation.

Steve shakes it, reminded of Tony's words in his mom's garden that night. "That means a lot, Mr. Jarvis," he says, gripping the man's hand firmly. "I just…I can't tell you how grateful I am for you and Tony's help. I don't…I don't know what would've happened if…"

Steve can't even finish the sentence. Now that he's safe, now that he's about to be reunited with his family, he's terrified of what could have happened…what almost did happen. He doesn't want to be locked up, and he doesn't want to be separated from them. The thought terrifies him.

Jarvis gives him a warm smile, his eyes twinkling. "I know that in this instance, it was simply an unfortunate situation…but try not to get caught again, hm?"

Steve laughs. "I'll try."

With a final nod, he starts walking away. He can feel his heart beating in excitement and anticipation with every step he takes further to this warehouse, because inside is everything he loves, and he's so, so ready to be home.

"Steve."

Jarvis' low voice stops him, and about two hundred feet from the warehouse, he stops and turns. "Should you ever cross paths with Anthony again…and believe me, if he has his way, you will…watch out for him." Steve blinks, the request taking him by surprise. "He'd be very unhappy if he knew I was saying anything, but…he looks up to the six of you quite a lot. He admires you." Jarvis pauses, taking an unsteady breath and looking away. "He's a very capable young man and a genius to boot, but…I believe that he himself, and the people around him, often forget that he's only thirteen years old."

Steve nods. He can see how that would happen, because he's forgotten himself over the past hour or so. Squaring his shoulders, he turns to face the man. "If I see him again…I'll remember that. And please tell him…I'll never be able to repay him."

Jarvis smiles, satisfied. "I will. Now go. You have some people waiting for you."

Steve gives the first truly genuine smile of the entire night, a toothy grin he rarely, _rarely_ gets, and all but runs to the door of the warehouse.

With one last glance at Jarvis, who's walking towards the main road, he opens the door.

It's pitch black, just like he knows it will be. He hears the distinct click of a gun, feels Natasha's eyes on him from the left, feels Bucky's scope on his faceless form from the rafters. He closes the door behind him and holds up his hands, saying with a tired smirk, "You should really be nicer to a guy that just got out of prison."

He feels the air still around him as they all stop short in realization, then there's a frantic scrambling, running footsteps, and pretty soon he has an armful of Bruce, the kid's skinny arms wrapped tightly around his neck, his face buried in his shoulder.

"Steve," Bruce chokes out, and the kid is a sobbing and trembling mess in Steve's arms, "_S-Steve_."

"Hey," he breathes softly, wrapping his arms around his back, kneeling when Bruce can't even hold himself up anymore. "Hey, I've got you, kiddo, I'm here, I'm okay."

He feels the others close in from all sides, and he looks up, giving them a wet smile. "What's for dinner? Prison food wasn't all that appealing."

Clint looks torn between laughing and punching him as he whispers, "I hate you," and kneels beside him, leaning his forehead on his shoulder. "I hate you so freaking much, man."

Bucky and Thor skip words altogether, throwing themselves into the hug with desperation, and Steve wishes his arms were bigger so he could embrace them all.

Natasha scoffs from his place to the side. "And people say women are emotional."

Steve wriggles an arm out of the tangle of limbs around him, holding it out to her. He smiles and says, "Get in here, Nat. You know you love us."

A tired, exasperated smile forming on her lips, she does.

And Steve has never been happier.

**A/N: Awww my KIDS I love them so much**

**So, what did you guys think? Hope you enjoyed some emotional roller coaster, and my man Jarvis, because I love him to death. Please drop a review if you have a minute!**

**NostalgicFangirl: Thanks so much! I hope this didn't disappoint!**

**And for those of you drawing ideas from the first two chapters, it's not always Tony saving the Avengers…it definitely get to be the other way around, too ;)**

**Thanks so much for reading! I hope you all enjoyed!**


	3. Chapter 3

The next time he sees them, it's a week before Tony's fourteenth birthday.

Not that it really means much, but he remembers the date. He's just finished up a big project and has been rewarded with some rare downtime, and he takes the opportunity to dig into his mother's case.

Every door leading to his bathroom is locked—his hallway door, his living room door, his bedroom door, his bathroom door, even the windows. He'll be able to hear Obadiah or his father coming in enough time to gather and hide the file, in that case.

They're both out of town, but he takes no chances. If they found out he was looking into this…God, they'd destroy everything he's been working for, and they may very well kill him, this time.

Tony shudders, shakes his head, and refocuses. Twirling a pencil in his hand, his laptop open beside him as he leans back against the bathtub, he thinks.

He's thankful that the autopsy report is clinically detached—reading it, he can almost pretend that it's describing someone else.

_Subject sustained blunt force trauma primarily to the left side of the body. Current speculation is that she fell from a height of approximately ninety-six feet, from the roof of an eight-story building. Blunt force trauma resulted in the rupture of the heart, left lung, spleen, and pancreas. Subject also sustained severe bleeding from the brain, as well as multiple compound and hairline fractures. Subject is suspected to have died on impact. _

Tony closes his eyes. He's read it before, but every time is just as painful as the first.

_Although the state of the subject was compromised due to the several injuries received during the fall, the subject showed no defensive wounds or injuries to suggest that her actions were anything but voluntary. Based on these and other speculations from the cooperating detectives, the general consensus is that this was a suicide._

Tony shakes his head. It wasn't. He knows in his heart, with every fiber of his being, that it wasn't. Or if it was…there was more to the story, because…his mother wouldn't have just left him. Not like that. He'd been with her just before—

He stops. Rifling through the papers, he finds the photo in the police report, of his mother's body prone and bleeding and broken on the ground, but the picture can never do it justice.

He should know, after all. He saw her.

He lets out a deep breath and puts it all to the side, focusing on everything else he has so far.

The awful thing about suicide is that everyone assumes it's so cut and dry. She killed herself, it's pretty clear, so why investigate any further?

The adults around him don't know her like he did. So it's up to him to find out what happened.

He's already pulled CCTV footage from a three-block radius, and he's found something quite interesting—it was his first major discovery, the one that convinced him that he was right—that it wasn't a suicide.

Every camera in his radius was perfectly fine, in peak condition, except for one—the only one with a clear view of the roof. It was, conveniently, down for a "routine inspection" at the time.

According to the police, it was an unfortunate coincidence. Another CCTV camera caught his mother's shadow as it plummeted to the ground, and showed a sliver of the roof, which was clear of any other individuals.

Tony scoffs to himself, bringing up his mother's phone records.

He goes back to the last day of activity—the day she died. He remembers the day vividly. His mother had surprised him with a vacation, with just the two of them and Jarvis. She'd smiled at him, beautiful and kind, but he remembers seeing worry in her eyes, and he remembers wondering why it was there. In hindsight, everything about her demeanor was a bit frantic, a bit harried…unsteady.

Afraid.

He wonders what she'd been hiding, and if someone had ended up killing her for it.

He checks the call log, even though he knows what he'll find. They'd been at a fancy inn in the city—Jarvis had gone out to buy some last-minute necessities for them. Tony had been on his laptop, finishing up some blueprints for Howard so they'd have no reason to bother him on his vacation. His mother had been at the mahogany desk, organizing something for one of her foundations' upcoming banquets.

Her cell phone had rung. He remembers, out of the corner of his eye, seeing her pale.

She'd assured him she was fine, and stepped out to take the call, but not before running a beautiful hand through his unruly hair and planting a kiss on his forehead, smiling softly and whispering that she loved him.

He'd finished his work, but after almost twenty minutes, she was still gone.

He'd called her.

Tony sees that, now, on her call log. He'd called her twice, and both times, it had gone straight to voicemail. She'd been on the phone with someone else—an unknown number, registered to an unknown name. The call had lasted for two minutes and thirty-six seconds.

Ten minutes later, he'd heard a horrible, sickening, crunching _thump_ outside his window.

They were on the fourth story, and he'd seen something rush by the open window, rustling the curtains as it passed. It was much too large to be a bird. He heard screaming from outside the window, and rushed to the hallway and down the stairs, wondering what was happening on the street.

His heart had thumped in his chest as he descended the steps. The hotel clerk in the lobby looked stricken, frozen on the spot. Tony had heard more screaming from the street. The door was closed, but it was tempered glass, and he could see forms moving frantically outside, rushing around a body prone on the ground. The handle was cold against his palm.

He hadn't wanted to open the door, but he had.

Tony, ripping himself out of the memory, has to lean over the toilet next to him until he's sure he won't vomit.

He's sure that number is the key to figuring all this out, but so far, he's had no luck tracing it. He has a program in progress, cross-checking the number against all the places you can get a burner phone—legal or no—in a two-hundred-mile radius, but he's had the program running for weeks and it's come up with nothing.

He's also got a hunch, but he doesn't know how to go about pursuing it just yet.

If someone was really on the phone with her, and she jumped herself…she must have had a reason. She must have been forced, or threatened, or…something.

And if that was the case, someone would have been watching.

He just has to find them.

Rubbing his tired eyes, he quickly pulls the taped CCTV footage he has stored on his laptop, writing up a quick algorithm to spot anyone with unusual or alarming movements. He's tried it before, but they always brought up unnecessary stuff like pickpockets or lunatics, and he really doesn't have time for that.

He leaves the algorithm to run, rubbing his eyes again. Maybe he should take advantage of not being busy and sleep for a while.

Replacing everything in his safe, leaving the program running in a lockdown browser that only he can access, he turns his light out and crashes.

…

He only sleeps for a few hours; when he wakes, it's pitch black outside. He sighs, feeling himself waking up more with every second, and decides now is as good a time as any to check on his program and run through a couple other questions around the case.

Shuffling to the kitchen to get himself something to drink, flicking on the light as he yawns, he turns to the counter with half closed eyes, fumbling for a glass in one of the cabinets. He finally manages to grab it, setting it exhaustedly on the counter and opening the fridge, rummaging for some orange juice or something. He's thirsty, but he doesn't want water.

Sighing, coming up empty, he's just about to extract himself from the fridge when someone clears their throat behind him.

He blames his reaction on the fact that he's half asleep and exhausted, because Tony positively loses it. He jolts upright—or tries to, anyway, and ends up banging his head on the shelf above him, knocking a bottle of ketchup and a container of pasta off the shelf. He blindly reaches out, grabbing one of the shelves in the fridge's door, but that comes off under his hand, and now he's got a busted jar of mayonnaise and broken eggs all around him where he kneels on the floor, clutching his head.

His heart is pounding, and he doesn't want to turn around, because Obadiah and Howard aren't supposed to be here, not right now—

And he suddenly registers that someone is laughing their damn head off.

Slowly, hesitantly, he turns, broken egg soaking into his pajama pants, and sees his six least favorite fugitives sitting around his table.

"You," he hisses, rubbing his aching head and standing precariously, trying to avoid the eggshells and pieces of pasta littering the floor, "_suck_."

Clint and Thor are laughing outright, not even trying to hide it. Bruce looks torn between laughing and cleaning up the mess, but settles for hiding a shy grin behind his glasses, looking at the table. Natasha, who—dammit—is sucking on giant spoonful of his Rocky Road, container in her lap, looks smugly at the mess, taking another bite of ice cream. Bucky's smirking at the mess, arms folded over his chest. Steve, for his part, is trying really hard not to laugh. Tony has to give him credit, but he ends up snorting into his hand anyways, eyes dancing guiltily.

Bruce is the first to move, padding over silently, cautiously, and gathering some of the pasta in his hands, putting it into the righted bowl. He grins shyly and says, "We didn't mean to scare you…you just, uh, didn't see us, and then—"

Tony holds up a hand, thoroughly aware of how hilarious that spectacle must have been, but still humiliated. "Yeah, yeah, spare me the semantics. Not that I'm not thrilled to see my favorite fugitives, but it doesn't look like any of you are dying, so what's up?"

Yes, Tony's aware of how harsh his words are, and no, he's really not awake enough to care just yet.

Steve shrugs, joining Bruce and Tony as they try to clear away some of the mess. "We were in the neighborhood, though we'd stop by."

Tony stills, looking up, scrutinizing him. "That's it?"

"Nope," Clint says, popping the "p" as he opens Tony's fridge and looks inside, grabbing a can of whipped cream with a delighted smile. "We brought you something."

Tony's instantly wary, and he doesn't know why.

_Idiot. You promised yourself you wouldn't trust them_.

Tony shakes his head at himself, willing the voice to be quiet so he can think. "If it's a blank check, try the house up the block. Hear they just won the lottery," he says sarcastically. "How'd you even get in here? I locked everything."

"You sure did," Bucky says, annoyedly glancing at his now-open hallway door. "Took us forever to pick all the damn locks. You trying to keep out the apocalypse or something?"

_Well, yeah, something like that_. "Maybe I just like my privacy. That doesn't seem to be working very well, though."

"You'll have to do better than that to keep us out," Natasha says, winking at him as she takes another bite of ice cream.

Tony sighs, putting another egg shell in his trash can. "Well, it goes without saying," he gave Natasha and Clint pointed looks, "but help yourselves, I guess. I'm going to change clothes."

Tony more or less rushes to his room before anyone can stop him, putting his back to the door and breathing out a quiet, shaking sigh. He isn't ready for this. He didn't prepare himself for this, for the people and the questions and the ridicule.

Mechanically, he changes into a baggy Aerosmith t-shirt and black sweatpants, trudging back to the kitchen after splashing his face with cold water. Bruce and Steve have more or less finished cleaning everything up, and it's all in the pasta container by the sink. Bucky is munching on an apple he's snagged from the fridge, and Clint's showing Thor how to work the whipped cream canister. Natasha has traded his Rocky Road for some potato chips, and they're munching away.

"You guys are going to eat me out of house and home," he grumbles, snagging a lukewarm Gatorade from his pantry. "Leave the dishes, I'll do them later. Bruce, Steve, there's food. Eat some."

Bruce shifts nervously, fiddling with his glasses, and looks at the others, as if asking for permission. Steve smiles, giving a gentle nod, and Bruce grins, diving for the fridge. Tony's eyes flick back to the others, watching the interaction, and they're all smiling, too. Tony realizes that Bruce is the youngest, the baby of their family, and he feels a pang of something in his chest.

_You don't trust them. You're not allowed to get attached_.

He shakes his head, looking back at Bruce. There's something off about his face, but he can't really tell what, and it's bugging him. Once Bruce resurfaces with container of sandwich meat and turns towards Tony to reach for the bread, Tony gets a clear view of the problem.

Scoffing, he walks right up to him and plucks the glasses off his face, ignoring Bruce's dropped jaw.

"Hey," Clint says, his tone taking on a hint of warning as he immediately abandons his whipped cream and stalks up to Tony, towering over him. "What's your deal, man?"

Tony, unimpressed, looks up at Clint and holds up the glasses. "These things are about to fall apart. I'm fixing them."

He grabs a little tool kit from the pantry (he keeps one in every room in the house, just in case) and pulls out the smallest Phillip's head in his arsenal, setting to work.

Clint blinks, watching him, and says, "Well, next time some warning would be nice. Bruce can't see very well without them."

Tony, focused on his task and still reeling from the unexpected visit, barely spares a glance in Bruce's general direction. "Sorry. I'll be quick." It's little more than a mumble.

Bruce simply waves it off, giving Tony a slight, unfocused smile, but Bucky scoffs. "Who knew. 'Sorry' is in your vocabulary."

"Buck," Steve chastises gently, and Tony's getting really sick of all these people ganging up on him when he's done way more for them than he'd normally do for any _non_criminal.

"Door's right there, Robo-Cop," Tony says, focusing intently on the glasses in front of him, ignoring the twinge of hurt in his chest. "Nothing's stopping you."

No one says anything in reply, but Tony doesn't expect an answer. Switching out his Phillip's head for a tiny screwdriver, he gently takes the glasses apart, starting slightly when Steve breaks the silence.

"So, uh…" Steve starts, making his way to the pantry, trying to appear casual. "How are things? Life, and stuff?" Tony can see the exact moment when Steve cringes at his own words, but he's nice enough to play dumb for a moment. The others aren't as discreet. Bucky snorts in the middle of biting into his apple, and he has to fumble for the fruit, his shoulders trembling as he tries to contain his laughter.

Tony does still at the question, though, and looks up slowly, eyes tight in confusion. "Fine," he says slowly, deliberately. "Uh…why the sudden interest?"

Steve shrugs, grabbing a tub of peanut butter and an apple, which he's starting to peel. "Just…curious."

"Uh-huh," Tony says, returning to the glasses, trying to ignore the thick, awkward silence that has blanketed the room. "Well…life is fine."

"Good," Steve says, and Tony thinks he might die from second-hand embarrassment.

"What do you do in your free time?" Natasha's voice breaks the silence next, and she looks at him intently, watching as he secures one of the final screws. "You're not in school, are you?"

"No, I graduated," Tony says, closing his tool kit and inspecting the glasses, putting them on his own face to make sure they're secure. "Howard and Obadiah didn't want me going to college. Bruce, your vision really sucks."

Bruce blushes, pink dusting his cheeks, but he reaches out and smiles gratefully when Tony hands him the repaired glasses. "You call your dad by his first name?" Clint asks suddenly, confusion evident in his features, and Tony instantly realizes that he's slipped up.

_Damn_, Tony thinks, cursing himself for such a stupid, simple mistake. That's a red flag if he's ever seen one, and these are exactly the people he needs to _not_ alert to his situation. "Yeah. Just a habit."

No one replies, and Tony can tell that he's screwed up. He stands, trying to find something to do with his hands to ignore the tension. He settles for doing the dishes.

"Anthony, do you not have servants to do that?" Thor's rumbling voice asks as he dumps the ruined food into the trashcan and starts the water.

Almost on reflex, he snaps, "Don't call me Anthony." There's a beat of silence, and he sighs, putting the bowl under the running water. "I mean, technically. They're my dad's staff, not mine. I do a lot of my own stuff."

He forces himself to say "dad", and the word is bitter on his tongue.

"Oh," Clint says, confusion evident in his voice. Tony's used to having people think he does nothing for himself. It doesn't matter.

"You said you had something for me?" Tony asks after a few minutes of nothing but running water and the sounds of food being devoured, setting the damp dishes to the side to dry.

"Oh, yeah," Clint says, a sly smile coming over his features. He plucks a small box out of the backpack by his chair (Tony recognizes it as one of the ones he'd given them, what seems like forever ago) and slides it towards him.

"Happy early birthday, Wonder Boy." Steve says with a tight smile. Tony can tell he's forcing himself to be polite, but he can also see a genuine smile there.

Tony is instantly on guard, and he feels his shoulders tense. He doesn't like not knowing things. Howard and Obadiah have tricked him too many times for him to be comfortable opening mystery boxes. "What…uh, what is it?" He makes no move to go towards the table.

"A pony," Natasha says dryly, munching on another chip. "Just open it."

Somehow, her relaxed posture and sharp words ease him somewhat, and he tentatively plucks the box off the table. He opens it, his shoulders stiff.

It's a phone. And it's a _dinosaur_.

His face contorts in confusion, and he looks up at the six of them, watching him expectantly. "I…really hate to break it to you, but I have a couple of these."

Bucky scoffs. "These aren't like your fancy ones. This one's from us."

A pause. "I don't get it."

"And they said you were a genius." Clint shakes his head in mock disappointment, crouching on his chair. "It's for you to contact us if you're ever in trouble, or you need anything."

Tony stills, staring at the phone in his hand. His mind is yanked back to that moment with Jarvis all those years ago, of him handing him an old phone and promising to be there, whenever Tony needed him.

"Why?" The word is out of his mouth before he can help himself, and he wishes he could pluck it from the air, but he can't.

"Why?" Bruce parrots, obviously confused by the question. "You saved Bucky's life, a-and you got Steve back with us, and you…I mean, you d-didn't _have_ to…do that. We want to return the favor."

Tony absently realizes that that's the most he's ever heard Bruce say. He flips the phone open and finds six saved numbers, under their initials. "You're not worried I'll rat you guys out? Do you know how easily someone could find you with these?"

"You are a noble ally, Stark!" Thor says, and Tony's going to feel bad about correcting him again. "You have aided us several times, and earned our trust."

Tony flinches at the last word, gripping the phone tighter and putting it into his pocket. He doesn't quite understand how some people throw that word around so casually. "Just…call me Tony, big guy. Just Tony."

Thor cocks his head, but nods. Tony takes a breath and manages a smile that he hopes doesn't look like a grimace. "Well, I…I mean, thanks. I…I really appreciate it."

"You don't look too thrilled," Natasha says, and Tony's starting to get frustrated with her magical ability to read his mind. Granted, he doesn't think it took much with his reaction.

"No, I mean…I really do appreciate it," he says, and he does. It's a nice gesture, but he knows he'll never use it. "I just…you didn't have to thank me. I wouldn't have helped you if I hadn't wanted to." He wonders if this is their way of ensuring his continued support. Man, he feels like a benefactor.

"And we wouldn't have given that to you if we didn't want you to use it," Bucky comments, rising swiftly and rummaging the fridge once again. "So don't be an idiot."

Tony tenses, aggravated by the comment, but it eases him anyways. He's glad they're not asking for more. He doesn't know how he'd respond.

"I hate to ask, but…would you mind if we stayed the night?" Steve asks, shrugging guiltily. "We were going to leave, but…it's supposed to rain."

And there goes that thought. But this is something simple he can give.

Pausing, rubbing the back of his neck, he nods. "Sure. There's a guest bedroom past my room. The bed will fit two, and there's a pull-out couch for two more. One of you can have my bed, but the other one's going to have to take the recliner or an air mattress."

"Whoa, hey, we don't wanna take your bed," Clint says, his eyebrows drawn together in confusion. There are similar expressions on the others' faces.

"It's fine," Tony says, putting the phone in the pocket of his sweatpants and avoiding everyone's eyes, grabbing the glass he'd abandoned when he'd originally entered the kitchen. He fills it with water from the tap and takes a swig. "I have a project I need to work on, anyways. Wasn't planning on going back to sleep anytime soon."

"Is this sleep pattern healthy for a young boy?" Thor asks quietly, and he can feel a vein in his forehead bulge at being addressed as "young boy."

"No, but I'm a genius, so it doesn't matter," he says decisively, grabbing an apple and taking a bite. May as well eat while he's up. "Just let me grab my stuff from my room and I'll get you guys set up."

He closes his bedroom door without another word, looking around his room to make sure there's nothing he needs to put in the safe or out of sight. He usually keeps it fairly neat, and he keeps everything private and personal out of sight or in the safe anyways, just in case Howard or Obadiah pops in unexpectedly.

He grabs his laptop and case binder from his safe and puts them on his bed, then walks through to the guest room and sets up the pull-out couch and the recliner, dragging a stack of pillows and blankets from his closet. He doesn't know why they're there, really, but he has enough.

When he gets back, he puts his laptop and binder on the counter, out of sight, and places himself directly in front of it. "Your presidential suites are ready, sorry there are no mints on your pillows, check-out is whenever the hell you want, because my dad's out of town. There's a bathroom attached to the guest room; you can shower if you want. Actually, please do." That gets him some dirty looks, but he quirks a sarcastic smile. "If you need anything, I'll be in the living room working, just through that door." He points to his left. "Now get out and give me some peace."

With varying degrees of excitement and apprehension, the six of them retreat to Tony's inner rooms. Tony sighs, sinking heavily into the recliner in the living room, his laptop casting an eerie blue glow on his surroundings. The program has gotten a couple hits on suspicious activity, but it's still running; he decides to let it finish before diving into that can of worms, focusing instead on an upcoming project for Stark Industries.

He's been there for a couple hours working steadily before he's interrupted, which he has to admit, is a lot longer than he thought he'd get with the six of them wreaking havoc.

"Um…" a small voice says from the doorway. Tony flinches, not expecting it, and looks up to see Bruce standing in the doorway, fiddling with his shirtsleeves nervously. "Uh, Tony?"

"Hey," Tony says, quickly shutting down his laptop and putting his notes out of sight. "What's up?"

"Sorry, I…didn't mean to bother you," Bruce stammers, and Tony finds it hard to believe he's a year older than him. Or would, if he were a smidgen taller. "I just, uh…can't sleep and I was wondering i-if you had any, uh…b-books lying around?"

Tony blinks. "Uh, sure. Yeah, there's a bookshelf through here," Tony says, leading him into one of the side-rooms. "What do you like?"

"Science," he answers immediately, and Tony sees his eyes light up a fraction. "Especially chemistry."

Tony laughs. It's a thoughtless reaction to Bruce's excitement, and he's already reaching for a chemistry journal before he realizes that that's the first time he's laughed in a really long time.

He pauses long enough for Bruce to catch on. "Are you okay?" There's real concern in his voice.

"Yeah," Tony shrugs, picking up where he left off. He snags a magazine from the shelf in front of him and all but shoves it into Bruce's hands. "Chemistry journal. Got some good articles. Try the one on thermal pressure readings, it's interesting." Tony isn't sure Bruce will understand everything in there, but it will keep him occupied, at least.

"Oh," Bruce says, looking at the magazine with something like longing. Tony notices now, in the better lighting, that his face is cleaner, and his hair is curled and damp. "Thank you." There's a genuine smile on his lips.

Bruce goes back to the living room, but instead of continuing back to the guest rooms like Tony had intended, he curls up on the couch opposite Tony and opens the magazine, hungry eyes scanning every inch of the page. Tony guesses it's been a while since he had something to read.

Sighing, for some reason unwilling to kick him out, Tony turns the laptop out of Bruce's eyeshot and pulls the program back up. He's got a couple more hits, but it's only 60% complete. He knows it's bad to be optimistic, but he's hopeful that something will be spotted.

Instead, he returns to his project, staring at the tattered graph paper in front of him littered with half-finished equations. He's trying to balance the chemical equations for a nerve gas to incapacitate for just thirty minutes. Useful for tricky situations that you need to be in and out of without collateral damage.

It doesn't kill, so Tony will make it.

However, the equations just aren't balancing. He doesn't know if he's just tired or if he lost six million brain cells when he wasn't looking, but the blurred numbers on the page aren't balancing. If it's improperly balanced, the paralysis could be ineffective, permanent, or even deadly, so mistakes aren't an option.

He drags a hand through his hair, nibbling at his eraser. Bruce's voice startles him, and he jumps. "What's wrong?"

He looks up, tapping the pencil against his knee, to where Bruce is still curled up on the couch, having snagged the blanket and put it over him. He seems…very comfortable. Not just physically, but…open. From what Tony can tell, he's very shy, but he's looking intently at Tony. He's making eye contact, which is more than he can say for when he met Bruce a year ago.

Tony finds it odd. This is only the second time he's interacted with Bruce, but the six of them have all but consumed part of his life for the last year, and since he's been keeping tabs on them, he feels like he knows Bruce better than he really does. He's surprised Bruce is being as open as he is.

Tony sighs. Then again, he's being unusually hospitable, too. Normally he would've ordered Bruce back to the guest rooms.

He fights the urge to smile. It's odd. He doesn't hate it.

"I'm just having trouble with an equation," he says, and he _knows_ he's tired, because he usually doesn't admit that he's struggling with _anything_ to _anyone_.

"What kind?" Bruce asks, and Tony's in deep now, because the magazine is closed and Bruce's eyes are trained on the paper in front of Tony.

Tony sighs. "Just…work stuff." Wow, that sounded douchey. He tries again. "A project for How…for my dad. He lets me design stuff sometimes, as practice for when I inherit the company."

He almost scoffs at the absurdity of that statement.

"Oh," Bruce says, looking interested. "That's really cool. My dad used to let me work on stuff with him, too."

Tony stops tapping his pencil. He's listened to the news reports on the Avengers, and he knows at least what the media has divulged about their backstories. Bruce has some kind of alter ego that comes out when he's in danger, but no one's ever seen it close up. He got it because his father experimented on him with potent gamma radiation.

Tony shifts awkwardly. Bruce's expression has turned neutral, blank, and Tony knows the feeling well, but he doesn't know…how to comfort. He doesn't know what to say in such a delicate situation.

So he sighs, rubbing the bridge of his nose, and slides the paper and pencil towards him, closing his laptop. The program will continue to run even in sleep mode. "Wanna give it a shot?"

Bruce's eyes light up. He pulls the paper towards him, picks up the pencil.

Tony leans his head back. It would take a genius to know what all the chemicals would make, so he's not exactly sweating the confidentiality. Besides, it'll take Bruce a while to figure it out, if he can, so he may as well rest his eyes while he wai—

"There," Bruce says, and Tony hears the clack of the pencil meeting the wooden table. "You had one of the subscripts wrong, and it was messing all your numbers up. Also, why are you making a nerve gas?"

Tony opens his eyes and raises his head slowly, staring in absolute disbelief at the guy in front of him. His lips part in an attempt to reply, to sound intelligent, to say _something_, but his shock is muting any words he could possibly form.

Bruce isn't even looking at him. His eyes are wide and bright as he stares at the sheet in front of him, and Tony can see the wheels turning in his head, the cogs shifting and reworking and going over all the numbers. "You know, you would be able to control the time limit better if you added two more neutralized Xenon atoms, and there's a lower chance it would disperse ineffectively if you added more covalent bonds to counteract the Hydrogen and Oxygen it'll interact with when it's in aerosol form."

Tony blinks.

Bruce flinches, like it's the first time he's realizing that he's been talking a lot, and looks up. Tony sees something that might have been fear, but he recognizes it as apprehension, the worry of overstepping. He has a feeling Bruce knows that sensation as well as he does.

Bruce clears his throat, sliding the paper back towards Tony with a barely trembling hand. "Uh…I'm—I'm s-sorry, I just…g-got excited, um…I'm p-probably all wrong…"

Tony snatches the paper from underneath his hand, and Bruce flinches back in surprise, but Tony can't care. Scanning it, running the numbers in his head, accounting for Bruce's corrections and suggestions, he's dumbfounded.

"You brilliant bastard," Tony says is disbelief, peering at Bruce over the top of the paper. "I knew you were smart, but I didn't know you were a genius."

Bruce blushes furiously. "N-no, I—uh—"

"Newton or Leibniz?" Tony asks, a twinkle in his eye that hasn't been there in a long, long time.

Bruce blinks, understanding flickering in his eyes. "Leibniz, obviously."

"Davy or Faraday?"

A slow smile spreads over Bruce's face, excitement hovering in his eyes. "Both, but I've got to say Faraday. He's an underdog."

Tony grins. To his surprise and delight, Bruce grins back. "I haven't had a kid my age that speaks my language in a while."

"Me neither," Bruce says, and an understanding seems to pass between them.

They're up for the rest of the night.

…

When Steve wakes, he doesn't know where he is.

He knows immediately that he's slept much better than he has in a very long time. He's warm and dry and on a plush mattress, under a comforter and an extra duvet pulled up almost past his chin, and he is burrowed in his blankets like a child.

He has to blink his eyes open slowly, pale sunlight spilling into the dark room as the early morning dawns. He glances around, the unfamiliar settings sending his sluggish mind into an instinctive panic, before he remembers.

They crashed in Tony Stark's guest room again.

Steve drags a hand down his face, wiping the sleep from his eyes, and sits up, the covers falling from his body. Natasha is next to him, sleeping soundly. She must be as exhausted as he is, if she's sleeping through him moving around. He smiles affectionately and moves a strand of hair that's fallen into her face, brushing it back. She shifts, but doesn't wake, breathing out softly.

Thor is in Tony's room, in his bed; since he's the biggest, they decided it was probably for the best. Clint is passed out in the recliner in the corner, arms and legs akimbo as he snores like a freight train. Bucky and Bruce are sharing the pull-out couch. Steve glances up to see Bucky with his metal arm hanging off the bed, small snores coming from his lips, sleeping like a rock. He expects to see Bruce huddled against his side, or curled up on the other side, but he isn't there.

His heart leaps into his throat.

_He's probably in the bathroom_, he thinks, but as he turns quickly, he sees that the bathroom door is ajar and the light is off.

Steve's heart is beating fast, now, and he knows there's probably a rational explanation, knows he's probably in the kitchen, or somewhere nearby, but his protective instincts are now in overdrive and no amount of rational thought can possibly calm him.

He pads as quickly as he can to the kitchen, flicking the light on to find emptiness, and his worry skyrockets.

He turns, ready to yell for the others, ready to tear the house apart, when he hears something that he hasn't heard in a long time.

Bruce is laughing like a maniac.

Of course, he's heard Bruce laugh, with all the inappropriate jokes Clint and Bucky throw around. Bruce can laugh. But Steve hasn't heard him sound this—this carefree, this delighted, in a while.

"—no, no _way_!" Bruce says, his voice high and interrupted with spurts of laughter. "There's _no way_ that solution would work, Tony! Liquid Helium is _way_ too toxic to drink, even diluted that much."

"No, but _listen_," Tony responds, and Steve is surprised to hear that Tony's voice is bright, excited…happy, almost. Tony's usually so…flat, and emotionless. Sarcastic. "I know it's theoretical, but wouldn't that be the funniest prank in _history_? If you could isolate enough Helium atoms and mix them with water, or even soda, if you could make Helium a _drinkable_ gas, do you have _any idea_ what that would do?"

"It would travel through their airways and seep into their lungs until everyone who was affected sounded like a chipmunk who just inhaled a clown's livelihood," Bruce giggles, sounding every bit the child he is, and Steve's heart thumps in appreciation. He hasn't heard Bruce like this in a long time.

"Hey, that sounds like a joke I'd make," Tony snorts. "Stay in your lane, pal, you're supposed to be the goody-two-shoes."

Steve opens the door to find the two kids bent over the coffee table, mountains of tattered graph paper and reference textbooks surrounding them, scattered over the floor. Dozens of wadded up rejects are littered around the trash can in the corner; not all of them have found their mark, and the floor's covered. There's a couple empty soda cans and a few chip bags nearby.

"Looks like you two got tons of sleep," Steve says with a raised eyebrow.

Tony near jumps out of his skin, whipping around. Steve thinks, for just a brief second, that there's genuine fear in his eyes—before he can tell for sure, though, Tony's flat expression returns, and he gives Steve a righteously indignant expression, clapping a hand over his heart. "Son of a _bitch_, man, you scared the crap out of me."

"Language," Steve says disapprovingly. "You're thirteen, Tony."

Tony blinks, looking up at him as he comes to ruffle Bruce's hair. Bruce leans into him and Steve puts an arm around his shoulders, his heart calming as soon as he sees and feels that Bruce is safe. Bruce looks up and smiles wide.

"You didn't just say that," Tony says, looking at Steve like he's grown another head. "That word did _not_ just come out of your mouth. You're what, seventeen?"

Steve shifts. "Yes. What's the problem?"

"Bruce, I take it back. Title of goody-two-shoes has been irrevocably transferred to Golden Boy." Tony then looks up at Steve and stares him right in the eye before he says, "Damn. Shit. Bitch. Bastard—wow, you're flinching at every one of them!"

Bruce snorts into his hand and nearly doubles over to keep from laughing.

Steve, for his part, _does_ flinch at all of them, because—well, how can a kid this young have a mouth that foul? He resists the urge to cover Bruce's ears with his hands, instead sitting on Bruce's other side, glaring at Tony past him. "That's enough. It's not a party trick."

"It could be."

Steve sighs, looking at what he's sure is two trees of paper covering the living room. "What are you guys even working on?"

"Oh, _right_!" Tony exclaims, whipping around and glaring at Steve, reaching for a soda can. "I've got a bone to pick with you guys! How come you didn't tell me Bruce was a genius?"

Steve blinks, glancing at Bruce, still under his arm. His heart is still trying to calm down. Bruce is blushing, but not out of embarrassment or fear—out of excitement. "It didn't come up."

"It didn't come—you idiots. You have a literal genius on your hands. Do you have any idea how rare it is for me to find somebody my age who understands half the stuff I do? He understands all of it! You've been sitting on a gold mine!"

Steve blinks again, totally unprepared for Tony's outburst, and looks at Bruce. They've always known Bruce was smart, but none of them have ever been particularly intellectual, either; Steve guesses they wouldn't know the difference between a smart kid and a genius. "Um…"

"Tony and I have been working on a lot of different stuff," Bruce says, saving him from embarrassing himself further. He plucks a piece of paper from Tony's hand and shows it to Steve, who leans forward, listening attentively. "We've come up with a lot of communication ideas! And a lot of stupid pranks, but that's not the point."

Tony chokes on his soda and hacks loudly. When he's finished, he rasps, "Screw you, Banner, those were _not_ stupid pranks. Those are going to be my legacy."

"I hope not," Bruce grins, and Tony chucks a wadded-up piece of paper at him. Bruce ducks instinctively, grinning.

Steve is…confused. Shocked. Bruce has only ever been this open with the five of them. Whenever they have to interact with strangers—which isn't often, considering the illegal nature of their work—he's silent, pressed against one of their sides or planted firmly behind them. He's small, shy, incredibly self-conscious, easy to scare. He's _never_ allowed to participate in active missions—Steve isn't sure his heart could take that amount of worry—but his intelligence and his knack for building things has certainly come in handy.

Steve remembers when they found him—he was that last one. Steve and Bucky had been together from the start. They'd stumbled upon Thor, beaten and bloodied on the side of the road, and they couldn't very well leave him. They'd run into Natasha and Clint in an abandoned warehouse trying to seek shelter from a particularly nasty snowstorm. After six days of all of them huddled together, sharing their meager provisions and getting to know each other, tentative trust had formed between them. Hesitantly, the more they divulged, the more they realized they were all much more similar than any of them would like to believe.

There was an uneasy trust that slowly blossomed the longer they stayed together, but it wasn't cemented until they found a twelve-year-old Bruce shivering on the side of the road in nothing but a bloodied hospital gown. That was when they really became a family.

And in all these years they've all been together, Steve has _never_ seen Bruce this comfortable with a stranger.

He considers. Maybe there's more to Tony Stark than meets the eye.

…

Natasha ends up forcing Bruce to take a nap before they leave.

When she wakes, she beelines for the fridge, and Natasha takes one look at Bruce and points towards the guest room, eyebrow raised. "You look like you haven't slept all night, kiddo. Bed."

Bruce grins shyly and thanks Tony for everything that night, then slinks to the guest room, ducking as Natasha ruffles his hair in passing, smiling.

Tony's disappointed. He was having a great time with Bruce. He doesn't remember that last time he started off so well with someone, and he's missing the company. He knows, though, that once they leave here, they'll have to keep moving, and he can sleep when they leave.

Steve goes to take a shower, and Tony's left alone in the kitchen with Natasha Romanoff.

He shifts uncomfortably and makes his way to the fridge, looking for something to eat, while she sits at his table with a bowl of cereal.

"Did you keep him up all night?" She asks, her voice devoid of emotion.

Tony starts, turning slowly. He doesn't like the vague nature of that question, but her face isn't giving anything away. "Uh…I mean, yeah…I didn't force him to stay, though." He sounds defensive even to himself.

"Hm," is all Natasha says, opting to take another bite of soggy Frosted Flakes.

Tony doesn't know whether to respond or not, so after a moment of awkward silence, he turns back to the fridge. He'd usually make eggs, but all he's got left of those are sticky, empty shells in the garbage can. He sighs, resigning himself to bread and butter. The butter container had been dented during the escapade, but the contents are still fine.

"Want any?" He asks, slathering the bread with a generous portion of butter.

"If you're offering," she says calmly. He sticks the piece on a plate and walks it to her.

"Hm. Feels kind of nice to have a rich boy genius make and serve me breakfast," she says, leaning forward on the table with her elbow supporting her weight, her chin in her hand. Her legs are crossed under the table, and she's looking at him with a smile that makes Tony feel like a fly in a spider's web.

He flinches, scowling at her. "Don't do that."

She blinks, tilting her head. "Do what?" Her voice is oh-so-innocent.

"Your Jedi mind tricks," he says, plopping down in front of her with his plate. "Quit trying to…I don't know, _whatever_ you were trying to do."

"If you're intimidated after that, I'd hate for you to see me on a real assignment," she says with a smirk, taking a bite of the bread. "Mm. Thank you. Everyone always skimps on the butter."

"I know, right?" Tony answers automatically, and he can't believe he's having an intelligent conversation with Natasha Romanoff. By all rights, she terrifies him just a little—more than she did a year ago when he met her, because after keeping tabs on her and looking more into her resume, he has more reasons to be terrified of her.

She eyes him, sets down her toast, and leans forward. "Now, since I've gotten the obligatory small-talk out of the way, let's have a chat." Her smile is that of a Cheshire cat who has its prey in _just_ the right spot.

Tony swallows. It's not just because he's done chewing, either.

"I'm very grateful for what you've done for us," she says, and he can see the sincerity in her eyes. "We're a family, the six of us, and I don't know what we would have done if you hadn't helped Bucky, or if Steve had been arrested for good. That would have been…horrible for us. I'm indebted to you."

Tony admits, for all his intelligence, he couldn't have predicted this conversation going this way. "You're…I mean, uh, you're welcome…"

"That being said," she says, and Tony feels his gut drop at the way her expression flips. Her eyes are cold and hard, her mouth in a thin line. "If you ever, _ever_, betray the faith we've given you, if you _ever_ sell us out, if you _ever_ put someone I love in danger…" If it's possible, her eyes darken, and Tony's acutely aware of sweat collecting on his forehead, "…there won't be anything left of you."

Ah. Tony's intelligence remains intact, because _this_ is the direction he pictured this going.

He imagines, if someone were to show him his own reflection right about now, he'd be white as a sheet.

"I got it," he says quietly. He wants to be offended. He wants to feel indignant that they could still question his intentions, but he can't. He can't, because behind the anger, the promise of blood, the hard glint of steel…

…Natasha's eyes are quietly desperate.

He knows, because he sees that look in his eyes every morning in the mirror.

"I got it," he says again, firmer this time. "Trust is…a big word. But…at least, for now, you can…um…"

"Don't," Natasha says, but when he looks up, she's smiling slightly. The hard glint is gone from her eyes. Lifting another spoonful of cereal towards her mouth, she says, "Thank you. That's enough. I believe you." She takes another bite, her eyes just barely laughing. "For now."

Some would see it as a threat, but Tony recognizes it as her witty comeback, throwing his own words back at him, and he can't help but grin a little.

Maybe she isn't that terrifying, after all.

…

They leave an hour later.

He can't help but feel disappointed. Bruce and he were having a lot of fun, and Natasha was actually maybe starting to treat him like a decent human—

He shakes his head, surprised at himself. He sounds like a grade-schooler trying to make friends.

He narrows his eyes at himself, squeezing his hands into fists at his sides. They will never be friends. They're not allowed to be.

They're…colleagues.

"Again, thank you for everything," Steve says with an easy smile, shouldering his backpack. Bucky, Clint, Thor, and Natasha are already waiting in the garden, ready to slip out the back gate. Natasha gives him a smirk and a nod, then turns back to the others. Tony can hear distant conversation and laughter as they tease each other. "Really, I feel like I'm always thanking you for something."

Bruce and Steve are with him on the deck. He's got his hands in his pockets, leaning against the railing, watching them as they go again, and he's struck with a powerful sense of déjà vu.

Tony shrugs, allowing a small smile to creep onto his face. "Nah, I should be thanking you, this time. For the phone." He looks at Bruce with a grin. "And for a million great prank ideas."

Bruce laughs, grinning himself. "Don't do that. Those are horrible. We can come up with some more productive ideas, next time."

Tony's smile falters, but he hides it as quickly as he can.

Next time.

He shouldn't be so relieved to hear those words.

"Yeah," he says, giving in and letting himself smile for real…just this once. "Next time."

Bruce smiles and nods, turning to go. Biting his lip, he turns back and says, looking slightly down. "You're, uh…you're really smart, Tony, and sometimes with mechanical stuff, I don't always know what to do…" He looks up, a faint blush on his cheeks. "Would you mind if I…texted you? You know, on the phone we gave you—just if I have questions?"

Tony feels his face heat up. He's never really had friends, but he knows from the fictional worlds he's explored in books and movies that they text sometimes. Talk on the phone, that kind of thing. He's not sure he should say yes. He doesn't want to be friends. He wants to help them do their job. He doesn't want to get attached.

He's lying to himself, and he knows it.

Damn. He's giving everything he has to keep them at arms length, to focus on staying alive long enough to find the person who killed his mother, or had her killed, and that should be his priority, shouldn't it? After that, it'll be getting away, buying his freedom, disappearing…

…but he's tired of giving. He wants to accept something.

He feels the bulky phone ni his pocket and clutches it tight, feeling his chest tighten as he allows himself to smile.

This is step one.

"Sure," he says, watching Bruce grin in response. It's more than he deserves.

"Awesome," Bruce says, waving as he runs to join the others. Bucky pulls him to his side immediately, and Bruce calls, "Thanks, Tony!"

Tony waves back, smiling. He feels both so much heavier and so much lighter.

"Use it," Steve says, and Tony's attention snaps back to him. Steve is giving him a serious look. "If you're ever in trouble, if…you need to talk, or something isn't going right, or you need to…tell us something. Use it."

For a moment, Tony is terrified that Steve cans see right through him. Right through his clothes. Can see the scars that litter his body, the countless stories and nights of hiding under his blanket waiting for the monsters to go away.

Tony simply nods. He doesn't respond verbally. He doesn't trust himself to.

Steve sighs, knowing that's all his going to get, and drops a hand on Tony's shoulder, giving it a friendly squeeze. "Call if you need us. I mean it."

"Likewise," he manages, giving Steve a tight smile. "Who knows what kind of trouble you'll find no your own."

Steve snorts, walking away to join the others. He turns back to wave, and Bruce does the same. Natasha gives him another nod, and the other three continue on ahead, through the trees and finally up and over the gate.

Tony's left staring at the spot they were long after they disappear beyond the fence, clutching the phone in his pocket.

**A/N: Ugh I love my children. Sorry it's been so long; hope the long chaoter makes up for it! **

**NostalgicFangirl: Thanks so much! I know I love him XD / ch 3: Thanks!**

**Guest: Thanks so much!**

**Hope you guys liked this chapter! Don't know when the next one will be out, but O hope soon :) go check out my other stories if you have a minute!**


	4. Chapter 4

He's found something.

Two weeks after writing the new program, waiting patiently for it to finish, he _has something_.

After sifting through the one hundred and twenty-four hits from his program, ruling out purse-snatches that slipped through his algorithm, a small child throwing a fit and causing a big enough scene to attract his attention, an undercover police officer watching a different scene unfold, he's found his guy.

Tony thought it would feel different.

There's not enough, yet, for facial recognition, but it's more of a tangible link to his mother's killer than he's ever had before. The man in the photo Tony had pulled from the footage is wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses—typical, Tony thinks, and so cliché—a dark jacket, and jeans.

A cell phone is pressed to his ear.

Tony's made sure. He's made sure he's not wrong. He's taken the parameters of the man's surroundings, the angles and dimensions of his face, and based on the angle of the tilt of his head, the body language, the way he's oriented in one direction, he's checked his math and he's _sure_ that the man's eyes are resting on a point approximately ninety-nine feet off the ground.

The building his mother had fallen from had been ninety-six feet.

And, cross-checking the layout of the street and buildings behind the man, putting it against the landscaping surrounding the crime scene, he's looking in the right direction.

Tony takes a shaky breath, staring at the grainy photo for so long his eyes begin to hurt.

The man is scowling, his lips closed tight in an unhappy expression. His eyes are hidden by the shades, but his nose is crooked. The hand clutching the phone is big and corded with taut muscles; he was clenching it tight.

Tony can't believe he's staring at the man—at least, one of them—complicit in his mother's murder. He has to close his eyes for a moment, looking away from the screen. After all these years, he's finally, _finally_ a step closer.

Tears build in his eyes, and angrily, frustrated, he wipes them away. It's not the time to cry. It's time to find this son of a bitch.

Tony gets to work.

…

It's harder than TV makes it seem.

The good guys hack into some big government mainframe, run the bad guy's face, or whatever they have of it, and they get a match or a few possible matches in a few seconds. It's quick, clean, and easy.

TV got it wrong, and Tony's pissed.

He's got off-the-radar programs running in every database he can think of—FBI, CIA, DEA, Homeland Security, hell, even the NSA—but there are millions of faces to cross-reference and eliminate, and it's taking much longer than he thought it would.

He's getting antsy.

Inevitably, when he's forced to sit and do nothing but wait for more information to come to light, he can't help but wonder what he's going to do.

Sure, he's a genius with scary intellect and an armada of weapons and defense gear at his disposal, but he's still a small fourteen-year-old. How is he going to confront him? How's he going to approach him?

Hell, how's he going to _get_ to him? He can't even drive.

Well, he can, but not legally.

He sighs, leaving his program to run and going to the kitchen to grab something to drink. Glancing nostalgically at his kitchen table, he flashes back to two weeks ago, when the chairs were occupied. He pauses.

He's angry, to be perfectly honest.

He's known the six of them for…what, a year? Barely known them at all. He's seen them all of twice. Between him and all six of them, they've had…maybe four meaningful conversations. Bruce is an exception—they'd connected from the start because of their similar age and intellect. The others…Tony knows he'll never get along with them, not really.

Bucky is too stand-offish to ever really get to know him; Tony's wealth and cocky attitude have stigmatized him too much in Bucky's eyes. Clint's, too. Natasha won't hesitate to kill him in his sleep. Thor is…well, he admits he doesn't know much about Thor. The guy seems easygoing for the most part, but his past is dark, too, and he hasn't made any attempt to really get to know Tony. Granted, there hasn't been much opportunity for it, but at least Natasha, Steve, and Bruce had all struck up conversations with him.

Steve. Steve is…well, the guy's…Tony doesn't even know. He's just…Golden Boy. The guy's so damn _polite_ all the time, and Tony doesn't deal very well with those types. He's used to dealing with the stuck-up adults who make snide, thinly veiled comments of judgment and disgust behind your back when they know you can hear them anyways. He's used to Howard and Obadiah shouting at him, holding nothing back, leaving absolutely no scathing comment unsaid.

He doesn't know if Steve's said one negative thing to or about him yet, and that pisses him off, because he knows that everyone who interacts with him has something bad to say.

That's just how it is.

He scrubs a hand down his face and grabs a Gatorade, going out on the back deck to get some cool night air. It's nowhere near sunrise, but the stillness of the garden helps him think. Even though he knows Howard is inside, close to him, the enclosed backyard and the overflowing garden with the small lily pond is like a separate, isolated world. It's his corner of solitude in a cruel world.

He takes a swig of Gatorade, wondering about his future.

Howard and Obadiah don't plan on dying anytime soon, but he knows that when they do, he'll take over the company. That is, if he's still alive.

He shudders, though the night isn't that cold.

He wonders what he'll do with it. With everything in him, he wants to shut it down. He wants to completely eradicate the name 'Stark' from the weapons world, but he knows the Board, the world's elite with their own stakes in the company, will never let that happen. Even if he is the owner, the complex political relationships that make the company run make him literally _unable_ to make the decision himself.

But he doesn't want to make weapons anymore.

He doesn't kill. He doesn't want to kill.

Unwillingly, he thinks back to that night four years ago, when he saw the news that left him nearly catatonic for a week. The one time he did kill.

The last time.

His father had been particularly kind to him that week. In the months before, he'd been generous with his time and praise. He'd let Tony help him in the laboratory, where the magic happened. He'd let Tony assist him with his inventions, and he'd put away the alcohol for a solid two weeks.

His mother had been away on business for a couple of her Foundations, but when he'd called her, ecstatic that his father was even _speaking_ to him without raising his voice or his hands, his mother had been instantly wary. She'd told him to be careful.

He'd been young, stupid, and desperate to gain his father's approval.

And he had. He had. He'd built the most intricate weapon he could—the Jericho Missile.

His father had put a hand on his shoulder and for the first time in his life, as they watched the news air together, his father smiled and told him he was proud of him.

All it cost was two-hundred and thirty-six innocent lives.

His father had walked away, and Tony had watched the news for a moment more before collapsing, Jarvis barely catching him before he hit the floor, rushing him to their private clinic upstate. He didn't speak again for six days.

When he did, he resolutely told his father that he would never_, never_, build another weapon for him again.

That was when Howard broke his arm. But Tony hasn't broken his promise.

Tony shakes his head. He'll find a way. Once the company is his, no matter how long it takes, no matter how much he suffers to get there, once the company is in his name, they won't sell so much as another bullet.

Looking at the muted stars blocked out by the city lights, he wonders what his future will bring. Maybe, once he's twenty-one, he'll have enough freedom to get in contact with Rhodey and Pepper again. Will they even remember him by then? Will they want to talk to him? Will too much have changed for them to just pick up where they left off?

He finishes his Gatorade, forcing himself to trudge back inside. The What Ifs will do nothing for him now. They won't be relevant for another seven years, anyhow. He doesn't know if he'll survive seven years, anyways.

He doesn't have time for that, now. Right now, he has a mission.

He goes back to check on his program fully expecting there to be nothing new. Fully expecting to have to wait another two days, two weeks, two months…but there's a match.

There's a _match_.

Tony throws himself into the desk chair so quickly that it almost topples over, but he manages to right himself as his fingers fly across the keyboard, entering the name into every database he can think of, watching as reports upon reports pop up, and somewhere in the back of his mind he's thinking that this is going to take so much time to sort through but he can't even bring himself to be annoyed because there's a _name_ now.

There's a match. There's a face. There's a _name_.

Lance Freeman.

Somewhere, a small voice says that it doesn't sound like the name of a killer. But Tony will stop at nothing to find this man, because _dammit_ he's so _close_.

Criminal record. Extensive criminal record. Two counts of aggravated assault, one count of stalking. A couple restraining orders, a few years in jail…he was released earlier than his sentence was up. Tony looks at the day he was released, and looks up the corresponding police file on him.

Freeman was released two weeks before his mother died after a visit from an unnamed stranger.

Tony gets to work.

…

Four hours later, he has a lead.

He traced the burner phone back to a shady little place in Harlem that keeps good records. They're secure, too, but not secure enough to keep him out. Freeman's a regular, buying burner phones and bullets and a gun here or there; he's got a running tab, so Tony figures he's in good standing with the owners, if they're letting him rack up that much debt. And the tab extends back years, his first purchase made just before his mother's death.

It was a twenty-five-dollar purchase. The description simply read "burner." It was more than likely the burner phone the man had used to call his mother.

That's the first place he'll go.

But he'll need a ride.

Tony groans, putting his head on his folded arms. He can't take one of his father's cars; that's like asking for a death sentence. But what other option does he have? His favorite fugitives probably aren't toting around a minivan, either.

Tony sighs.

An hour later, in shades, a baseball cap, and his oldest, rattiest dark hoodie, he flags down a taxi passing by. He'd walked himself four miles to the edge of the city.

"221 Shady," he says, trying to make his voice sound a little deeper, but he's intelligent enough to know there's no hiding the fact that he's very much a kid. "Harlem."

The cab driver glances in the rearview mirror, a cigar hanging from his lips, and chuckles. "I ain't been doing this fa twenty years ta get scammed by a grade-schoola, kid. Keep walkin'."

Tony, who's been folding the money in his lap, sends a hundred-dollar bill folded into a paper airplane in a steady line until it takes a nosedive onto the dash in front of the driver. "Another hundred when we're there."

The cab driver's eyes go wide, and he grins. Tony's reminded of a shark. "Well, I guess I can spare da time."

It's started to rain at some point, and Tony stares out the glassy window, the already dull outside darkened further by the rain-washed glass and the sunglasses he's wearing.

His heart is racing.

This is the first concrete lead he's had in years. In all the time he's been working on his mother's case. He watches a raindrop trace its way down the window, slipping into the lip formed between the glass and the door, settling on the steady trickle there, disappearing.

Is he doing the right thing?

Should he send everything to the police anonymously and let them handle it? Should he send it to Jarvis and ask him to keep looking into it?

Should he let it drop completely?

He squeezes his hands into fists at his side, angry at himself for even considering that last thought. He is not giving up on his mother.

Ever.

She deserves justice, and by God, he is going to get it for her.

The cab slows to a stop.

"A hundred, kid," the cab driver says, his window cracked as he tips the cigar out of the window, the ash falling lifelessly to the pavement. The stubborn smolder is extinguished as soon as the first raindrop hits it. "Den you're on ya own."

Tony wordlessly hands the man a hundred-dollar bill and steps out of the car, immediately drenched by the sheets of rain. The cab driver takes off without another word.

Ohhhh man. Yeah, he's stepped into the shady part of Harlem, alright.

He's glad he's wearing all the dark, ratty clothing. It's impossible to tell who he is with everything on him; he looks like just another homeless kid. He stares at the little shop in front of him, the neon lights signaling that it's open. He takes a deep, shuddering breath, then breathes out.

He knows what to do. He's brought plenty of cash, stored safely in a concealed pocket within his hoodie. He'll ask for the man's whereabouts, or his habits, or his usual hangouts, and he'll pay nicely for the information.

He hopes it will work out as well as it does in his head.

With a shaking hand, already shivering from the cold rain still soaking him, he reaches for the door—

It opens before he can grab it, and someone knocks into him, bumping into him hard enough to send him crashing to the flooded ground, landing undignified on his butt.

"Oh, sorry, I didn't see you. You okay?"

Tony starts. He knows that voice.

Slowly, he looks up…

…and locks eyes with Clint Barton.

"Son of a bitch," Tony says, scrabbling to stand, to dart away, but realization dawns in Clint's eyes and he grabs Tony's arm before he can.

"Tony?" He asks, not trying to hide his shock. "What the hell are you doing out here?"

"Keep your voice _down_," Tony hisses, adjusting his sunglasses, peering past Clint to see—yep, there's Steve, and oh, Bucky too, and—

Tony's knees go weak. Had it not been for Clint's grip on his arm, he would've fallen back to the pavement.

Lance Freeman is standing right there.

Right in front of him.

Tony can't quite make himself move. He doesn't know whether he wants to stalk right up to the man and kill him with his bare hands or run the other direction before he panics. He wants to question the man. He wants to demand names, and figures, and he wants to ask _why_. He wants to ask the man if he has a mother. How it would feel if she was ripped away from him.

But he can't move.

"Tony," Clint says again, giving his arm a little shake. The scene in the open doorway, silhouetted by the pouring rain and the dark street, is drawing curious eyes all around the shop. Steve and Bucky have noticed it, noticed _him_, and are coming towards Clint wearing matching expressions of surprise.

But Tony can only freeze as Lance Freeman glances over and locks eyes with him.

Tony's still wearing his sunglasses, despite the darkness and the rain. It's impossible to tell where his gaze is resting. But even if Lance only sees it as a casual glance at a kid drawing too much attention, Tony's spine tingles like someone is walking on his grave for the brief second he locks eyes on the man.

The moment's over, and the eye contact is broken, but Tony feels like his entire world has changed.

"Tony!" Steve snaps in front of his face, putting a hand on his shoulder and steering his pliable body back out into the pouring rain, shrugging on a raincoat hanging by the door. "Come on, let's get out of here before someone recognizes you."

Tony vaguely feels himself being led away. Steve keeps a solid hand on his shoulder, steering him through the dark streets silently, Bucky and Clint trailing behind. Tony subconsciously considers his running into them and realizes it's really not all that spectacular of an encounter. The shop is well-known for being lax with criminals and fugitives, and it stocks all kinds of unsavory weapons and gadgets; it's no surprise that the six vigilantes would be frequent shoppers. Hell, they probably had loyalty cards.

He's shivering by now. His sweatshirt is soaked entirely through, rain dripping from his chin and nose and fingers, falling behind the shades and into his eyes. He's miserable.

And he didn't get to ask one damn question.

He feels Steve come to a stop under an awning a couple blocks away from the shop where the four of them are mostly sheltered from the rain. Steve pushes his hood back and runs a hand over his wet hair, letting out a breath that mists in front of him. "So, Tony. You're definitely not supposed to be in this part of town."

Tony comes out of his stupor, looking up at the three of them, blinking the rain from his eyes. "I was looking into something. Where's the other half of the Power Rangers?"

"Any particular reason you chose that shop?" Bucky asks, his arms crossed. His eyes are narrowed. "It's not a good place to come often, kid. Full of killers. And they're nearby, keeping watch on our next target."

Tony flinches at the first half of his answer and looks down. "I needed to see someone. Ask some questions about someone."

"Why?" Steve prods, his voice low. He sounds almost gentle. Tony realizes he must look pretty miserable if Steve is using that voice with him. "Tony, you shouldn't be out here. At all, but especially not by yourself. What's so important that you had to come alone?"

Tony shrugs half-heartedly, looking at the sopping pavement at his feet. He doesn't want them to know about his mother.

"Why'd you get so scared when you looked in the shop?" Clint piped up, adjusting the heavy-looking duffle bag on his shoulder. "You looked like you'd seen a ghost."

Tony shrugs again, angrily this time. "It doesn't matter, okay? If it's such a bad place, why were you guys there?"

"Oh, yeah, let's just pop into Wal-Mart and grab a few things," Clint says sarcastically, his eyebrows raised. "Seriously? It's _the_ off-the-books shop in New York. Everybody in the shadows finds their way at some point. It's full of shady characters—including yours truly, I guess—but who the hell would you be looking into who goes there?"

Tony opens his mouth to respond, then shuts it again, finally taking off his sunglasses and dragging a hand down his soaked face, shivering again. "He was there—the guy I needed to ask about. That's why I froze up."

"He was there?" Steve confirms, eyebrows furrowed. When Tony nods, he looks behind him at the other two. "We've at least spoken to everyone in there. I can't guarantee we'll have the answers, but what are your questions?"

Tony's floored for a second. He hadn't expected that response, and now that he has an opportunity, no words are coming. He settles for, "When was the first time you guys came here?"

Steve blinks at the question, then looks at Clint and Bucky for help. "What, a year and a half ago? Maybe a little more?" Clint shrugs helplessly, nodding.

Bucky says, "Think it was closer to two years—maybe a year and nine months, something like that. It was for that job in Jersey, remember? The restaurant owner."

Steve snaps his fingers, nodding. "Yeah, that was it. Why?"

Tony sighs. "You can't help me, anyway. The guy I'm looking into was…part of something that happened three years ago, so you won't know about it."

Steve gets that concerned look again, and Tony's about ready to bolt. He doesn't like this. He doesn't like being questioned so intently with nowhere to go, no immediate escape. The cold and the claustrophobia are both creeping in, and he needs to get away.

"You can stop being so secretive, you know," Clint says with a raised eyebrow and an easy smile. "If I know you, you know all our dirty little secrets. The media's broadcasted them all, anyways, but you're a tech genius, or whatever, and you seem to be picky about who you help. You probably know all about us."

Tony bristles at the accusation, but he can't help the twinge of guilt knowing that it's true.

He takes a deep breath, thinking quickly, and deeply. He hasn't told anyone, _anyone_, about his hunt for his mother's killer. He goes through the reasons why—his father and Obadiah would…be angry (that's an understatement). Jarvis could help, no doubt, but…he doesn't want to drag the man into yet another illegal mess. He can't risk Jarvis.

And…that's it. That's all the people he could feasibly tell.

So what's stopping him, really, from telling them?

He considers it. The six of them are much more adept to the shadowy parts of New York than he is. They'll know more rumors, have more information, than any computer system he can hack, or any amount he can throw at someone to bribe information out of them. They can get into and out of the shady places inconspicuously, while he'd be recognized before he'd fully gotten himself through the doorway.

The pros outweigh the cons, and he knows it.

He's thought too long, and they're staring at him. Taking a deep breath, fisting his hands at his sides as he shivers, he looks away. "Lance Freeman. I'm looking into Lance Freeman."

Steve blinks, and Clint doesn't bother to hide the surprise that comes across his face. Bucky remains impassive as ever. "Freeman? We've crossed paths with him a couple times. I don't trust him, but he's good for a quick contact."

Tony flinches at Steve's casual description of the man. "Do you know anything about a job he worked three years ago?" Describing his mother's murder as a "job" almost makes him sick, but he swallows down the bile and fear rushing up his throat.

"I don't think so," Clint answers, looking apologetic. "He hasn't mentioned it. I know he got out of prison early around that time, though. He was in for a couple felonies. Stalked his ex-wife, I think? Assaulted a couple boyfriends?"

Tony scoffs, turning away from them, walking up and down the span of the covered awning. His body is buzzing with adrenaline. He's actually asking the questions he spent so long thinking about, getting answers, no matter how useless. He's doing this.

He's actually doing this.

"What?" Clint asks, noticing his change in attitude.

"He should rot in jail for the rest of his miserable life," Tony spits, pressing both palms against his forehead, sliding them both up into his slick hair, baseball cap flapping off onto the soaked concrete, forgotten. "God…"

"What did he do?" Bucky asks, finally showing curiosity. Steve glances at him, and Tony can tell that that's been on his mind, as well. "Three years ago."

Tony stops, fisting his hands in his hair and looking up at the tattered awning. It's dark and raining and miserable, and he wants to be at home. He remembers one night a few years ago, they had a particularly bad storm, and Tony had been a little scared—okay, terrified. He hated thunder.

He'd crawled in bed with his mother. He'd been nine at the time. He snuggled down into the warm blankets and nuzzled himself into her arms. She'd woken up just enough to give him a warm smile before wrapping her arms around him, holding him close for the rest of the night, and he wasn't quite so scared after that.

Thunder rumbles nearby, the street illuminated for just a split second by a crack of lightning in the distance.

"He helped kill my mother," he finally spits, heaving a breath.

It's the first time he's said it out loud to another person.

His mother didn't kill herself. She was murdered.

He doesn't look at the others as the words leave his lips, but he hears Steve take a sharp breath. Clint, conversely, lets out a miserable whoosh of air, and shakes his head in Tony's peripheral. Tony barely catches the clench of Bucky's fists before he turns away.

Tony takes a calming breath, trying to regain some semblance of control, and lets it out. "I should…go. Home. I probably can't get back into the shop tonight, anyways. Sorry for interrupting your night."

He makes to go, walking quickly with his head ducked. He leans down to snag the baseball cap, and as he rises, Steve gently grabs his arm. He doesn't turn around.

"Tony," Steve says, and the earnestness in his voice is startling. "I'm sorry."

Tony shakes his hand off softly, putting his baseball cap on and replacing his shades. "Don't worry about it."

Steve shifts awkwardly, then says, "You've got your phone, right?" Tony nods, feeling the lump in his pocket. "Good. Remember what I said. This applies, too. If you have to come back, text one of use first, see if we're in the area. It's better than coming alone."

Tony nods again, giving the barest smile. "I will. Tell Bruce I said hi." Steve nods.

"I'll ask around," Bucky says suddenly, and Tony whips towards him in sheer surprise, his eyes wide behind the shades. Clint and Steve are both staring at him in surprise as well, but Bucky's got eyes only for Tony, and they're sharp and determined. "About Freeman, and about three years ago. If we go back to the shop soon, I'll ask around, see what the rumors are. I'll text you what I find out." He gives the barest, _barest_ hint of a smile, and Tony's surprised to realize it's the first time he's ever seen Bucky smile like that. "So for God's sake, stay out of this area, okay, kid? You're gonna get yourself into trouble."

Tony's breath hitches, and after a moment of tense silence, the rain pounding into him, he lets out a breathy laugh. "Thank you."

Bucky nods, then turns to go, dragging Clint behind him. With one last nod and a sad smile in Tony's direction, Steve turn and walk the other way. Clint turns and calls, "Take a taxi, okay? Don't accept rides from strangers!"

Tony gives him the middle finger solely on principle, and hears Clint laugh before walking away. He turns the corner onto the street without looking back, glancing down the dark road to see a lone taxi idling a few hundred feet away. He steps up to the curb and waves a hand, yawning behind the sunglasses. He's exhausted, physically and emotionally. He can't wait to get home and sleep some.

The taxi drives slowly in his direction, rolling to a stop by the curb. Tony, not thinking much other than of warmth and getting out of the rain, opens the backdoor.

As soon as he does, there's a hand shooting out and clamping around his wrist, keeping him still as two men pile out of the backseat, grabbing him. He barely has time for his eyes to widen in surprise before they're struggling, manhandling him into the backseat. One of them clamps a hand over his mouth and takes his arm, the other taking his other arm and pushing him towards the open door.

"Quit squirming, you little shit," one of them hisses. Tony's struggling desperately, squirming in their hands and lashing out with his legs, but between the two of them, they manage to wrestle him into the backseat. As soon as the door is shut, the driver's hitting the gas, and they're on their way to God-knows-where.

"Let me go!" Tony shouts, panic building in his chest as he continues to struggle even though he's locked in a moving car. He knows escape is pointless, he knows he's too confined to put up much of a fight, but his heart is hammering in his chest, panic bubbling up in his gut and rushing up his throat, his lungs spasming as the adrenaline races through his body—

One of them finally gives up on getting him secure and punches him square in the jaw, knocking Tony back against the seat and his other captor, who's quick to wrap his arms around his stunned form. The other one yells something at the driver, who throws back a plastic bag with a cloth inside. Tony kicks out again, hoping to dislodge it from the man's hand, but he just growls and rips the bag open, plucking the cloth out and shoving it onto Tony's face.

Tony shuts his eyes instinctively, still wriggling, fighting the arms around him and lashing out with his legs where he can, but as soon as he takes a breath, his limbs are flooded with lead. His mind is overpowered by the sickeningly sweet smell, pressing in on his mouth and nose unrelentingly, and he fights to stay conscious as his limbs slowly fall limp. His head falls back against his captor's shoulder, and the arms around him shift to accommodate his deadweight.

Tony feels his eyes flutter closed, the cloth still firmly pressed over his face.

Tony's last thought is that this is Clint's fault for suggesting he take a taxi.

**A/N: Hey! Sorry it's been so long! Hope you guys liked this chapter :) it was fun to write! I liked Tony being able to be a little more vulnerable with the others. Sorry Nat and Bruce and Thor were absent; I'll work them in next chapter :) as you've probably guessed, this chapter is part one of two…hopefully I won't leave you guys hanging on his cliffie too long!**

**As always, thanks so much to all my lovely reviewers: Christine-Danielle, TwilightGlow3, NostalgicFangirl, TwistingFaith, 123cassie123, The Violent Kurumi, Ammy of Asgard, Oriande Moonshadow, Whovianeverlark17, Beakers47, PoisonIvy533, ShadowedRose17, guest, Luckias, TC Howl, Shadow, Black' Victor Cachat, and Stormshadow13! Also, over 100 followers on 3 chapters? I'm blown away, guys. Thank you so much! **

**NostalgicFangirl: Thank you! And SAME I love them. They did, thanks! Lol yeah it's tragic**

**Guest: Hey, thanks so much for the review and suggestions! Don't worry, as the storylines become more intertwined I'm definitely going to be playing around with some points of view, so you'll definitely get to see some other perspectives! And I'll definitely look deeper into some of the other relationships going on, too :) thanks for reading! **

**Shadow: hahaha thank you so much! I KNOW Bruce is PRECIOUS. And I'm toying with it…like I think I may bring in Sam Wilson at some point, but I'm not sure yet. And BABY PETER sounds WONDERFUL, but I'm not sure if I'll get to that this story. Maybe in the sequel, if I get that far X'D thanks for the suggestions! Any other characters you'd like to see?**

**Thanks so much to everyone for the continued support! Drop a review if you have a minute!**


	5. Chapter 5

Steve is…confused.

Confused, and wary.

"This says Maria Stark killed herself," Steve says quietly, scrolling through the webpage on the beat-up laptop Bruce miraculously manages to keep functioning. "Says she threw herself off a nine-story building a few years ago. It—" Steve sighs. "Tony was…downstairs. Saw her pass by the window."

"Shit," Clint mutters. "That's gotta suck. He was…what, ten? Eleven?"

Steve nods. "But he seemed really sure. He's not…I've never seen him like that."

"We've only seen him three times," Bucky reminds him, cleaning one of his guns. They carry guns, yes, but they're all good shots, and they know where to shoot to injure and not kill. Bruce has configured a couple of them to house anesthetic darts, too, when they can scrounge them up on the black market for a fair price. "That's not a lot to go on."

"Maybe," Steve murmurs, scanning the article. "He seemed serious, though."

Clint sighs. "We'll look into it a little more. Owe the kid at least that."

Steve nods in agreement, still contemplative. He's missing something.

He doesn't like it when he's missing something.

"We've returned," a new voice says from the doorway. Steve glances back to see Bruce, Nat, and Thor piling in through the doorway, escaping the rain. They'd left Tony last night; it's morning now, but the sky remains dark and the rain is pounding steadily.

Thor had been the one to speak, but Steve knows him well enough—knows them all well enough—to realize that something is very wrong.

Clint beats him to it. "What happened?" His voice is wary. Bucky stops cleaning, glancing up.

Nat takes a deep breath, tossing a newspaper onto the table. "Passed a TV store; news was playing out front. Thought it was a joke, but then we saw this." Her body is coiled with tension, eyes angry behind her trademark indifference. "We're doing something about this, right?"

Intrigued, worried, Steve drags the paper towards him. Bruce has gone straight to Bucky, who puts his arm around the kid's shoulders and pulls him close. Bruce looks the worst—pale and shivering from the cold, eyes wide. Scared.

Steve reads the headline, and his heart drops.

"Wait, really?" Clint asks, reading over his shoulder. His voice is uncertain. "We just saw him!"

"When?" Nat asks, crossing her arms. Steve sees the wheels turning in her head.

"Last night, we ran into him," Bucky offers, glancing at the paper and scowling thoughtfully. Thor looks grave and serious, his huge, dripping frame imposing in the small room. "At the little black market shop; damn kid was trying to ask some questions. I guess someone saw him."

_Anthony Stark Kidnapped—Ransom Demanded!_

The headline stares Steve in the face. A grainy photo of Tony, presumably a mandatory school photo, shows his characteristic cocky grin and his mischievous eyes. The blotched gray paper has running ink and little tears from the heavy rain, but the message is still large and bold. The paper article is on the front cover and has obviously been rushed to print, simple in its structure—the facts, the case so far, and a plea for anyone with information to come forward.

"Yeah," Steve says, hands fisted at his sides. Tony is—something to them, at least. Steve is hesitant to say a friend, but he's more than just a random kid. "We're doing something about this. Everybody in?"

No one says otherwise.

They start to plan.

…

Tony's head is _killing_ him.

That's his first conscious thought, anyways. The next few are that the rest of him hurts, too, but that's more of a dull ache. His head is fuzzy, his surroundings full of muted, dull sound and blurring colors. He reaches up to rub his forehead—or tries, anyway. His hands are bound tightly together behind his back.

Tony's heart leaps.

"Kid's awake," a distorted voice says to his left. Blearily, he cuts a glance to the side, but he's still too out of it to process much. "Get Alpha."

Another someone's voice hits his ears and he sees someone slip out of the room. Shapes are becoming more defined, sounds more clear, but he's used to information being processed in his brain in the blink of an eye, and the sluggishness is frustrating.

"Quit struggling," the same voice says, and Tony glances to the side, able to make out a woman leaning against one of the cement walls, the bulge under her jacket indicating a gun, a scowl on her face indicating her willingness to use it. "You're not going anywhere."

Tony would usually have a snappy comeback up and waiting, a couple extras queued up, but his lips are just barely cooperating and his brain is still lagging.

He remembers what happened—a mélange of blurred images and the memory of crystal-clear panic. Someone had manhandled him into the back of a cab, knocked him out—probably trichloromethane, and a lot of it. He's small, so they probably went a little overboard on the dosage, if this headache is anything to go by.

Oh, yeah. And it's Clint's fault.

The door opens, two men slipping inside. One sends a smile in his directions. "Awake? Sorry about the rough treatment, kid. Didn't mean to give you that much."

Tony figured. "Coulda asked politely," he snarks, his tongue thick and heavy. He blinks heavily, still trying to bring everything into focus. "Maybe offered me some candy from the back of a white van."

The man smirks. "Cute."

"So I've been told."

The man doesn't offer a response, just drags a chair in front of him and flips it around, straddling it to put himself on eye-level with Tony. "So, Anthony. Or Tony?"

Tony just scoffs. "Kidnaps me, knocks me out, but how I prefer to be addressed is still up to me. Such a gentleman. It's also nice to introduce yourself first, you know."

Tony expects the man to get mad, but instead he quirks a smile. "Those are some big words for a kid. You can call me Alpha."

Tony raises an eyebrow. "Your parents were either drunk or high, huh?"

"Damn, they told me you had a mouth. I'd be nicer to me. It's a code name; that's Beta," he nodded towards the woman, still scowling spectacularly, "and Gamma." He nodded to the man standing in the corner of the room, keeping watch.

Tony doesn't like this. Code names mean they've done this before, and they know what they're doing.

Nervousness is bubbling in his gut, and he's getting antsy.

"I'll call you Tony; less stuffy," the man continues, rolling his neck. "It's very simple, okay? Your dad and your uncle cough up the money, you go home without a scratch. You'll be back in your mansion before you know it."

_Great_, Tony thinks. _I'm never getting out of here._

"Give me a computer and I can transfer it myself," Tony tries. He knows he'll be able to change their account balance without actually giving them any money, and he knows he'll be able to alert Jarvis or someone or what's happening—but he doesn't have a location. The drug couldn't have knocked him out for more than a couple hours, so he's likely still somewhere in New York, just a bit outside the city; still, it's a big place, and there are plenty of places to hide.

"Ambitious. I like that. Unfortunately, I know what you can do with a computer, kiddo. I'm not as stupid as you think." Alpha stands, setting the chair aside. "If all goes well, you'll be out of here in less than a day."

"If it doesn't?" Tony asks quietly, refusing to lower his eyes.

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," Alpha says with an emotionless smile. The look in his eyes tells Tony that despite his elusive answer, he has no qualms about hurting him to get the money. "For now, sit tight. Gamma, with me."

"Can you at least untie me?" He shouts after the man, but the door shuts with a resounding thud, giving him his answer.

Beta scoffs in the corner, her face turned up in an ugly sneer. "Good luck, kid."

Tony sighs. He tugs at the ropes, but he's smart enough to know that he's not going anywhere.

Not for a while, anyways.

…

They've got some semblance of a plan, after several hours of careful research.

Bruce had been able to find street cam footage of Tony being taken off the street in a cab. It was hard to follow the car through the throes of New York traffic, where you saw an identical yellow cab ever two or three cars, but Bruce managed, cross-referencing the license plate to be sure.

"Where'd you learn to do all this?" Natasha asked, an eyebrow raised. She looked impressed.

Bruce smiled shyly, ducking his head. "Tony showed me some things when we were there last. About how to hack into basic stuff; things like that."

"Hm," she responded, watching Bruce work.

On the CCTV footage, the cab pulled into an alley, and then there was a delay; a black van emerged three minutes later, the cab five minutes after that. They ran the footage twice, following both cars; the cab had been returned to the cabbie service on 49th and 11th, the driver exiting and clocking out as normal. The van was a different story.

They followed it as far as they could with traffic cams, but when it turned onto the freeway, it was lost among the traffic.

Then, Bucky saved them all: "He had his phone, didn't he?"

"What phone?" Steve had asked absently, still scanning the traffic, trying to keep with the black van even as it disappeared off an exit ramp.

"The phone we gave him, dimwit," Bucky said, looking up from the equipment we was readying for the ambush, when they got that far. "Didn't it have a tracker?"

The room went dead silent, and Clint smacked himself. "We're idiots."

From then, they'd been smarter about it, tracking his phone, pinpointing his location, cross-referencing it to a map of New York.

"Tony is located in…a storage facility," Thor says, scanning the report as Bruce yawns. "It says here…David's Self Storage. This is Tony's location."

Steve regards the find with dark eyes, thinking. "It's in Hell's Kitchen, in Manhattan." Steve considers, cautious about this whole thing. "We can't go in blind. We can't just search every storage room; there has to be a way to figure out which one he's in."

"Let's relocate," Natasha suggests, picking up her gun and shoving it into the holster at her hip, crossing her arms. "Move closer to the target sight. Clint and I will do reconnaissance, scope out the area and pinpoint the target location. Bruce can analyze the power grid, see if he can knock out some lights to help us along." Steve leans back, smiling fondly despite the situation. Natasha always slips into the intelligence jargon used in her Russian program when she starts analyzing, and even though he knows it's a habit she doesn't like, he can't say he doesn't find it endearing.

"When the mission goes live," she continues, "Bucky, Thor, Clint, you'll be muscle; take out the guards, get us inside. I'll see if I can sneak past someone and find Tony; Steve, you do the same. Whoever finds him first, radio in, we'll set up a rendezvous point when we've analyzed the field better. Bruce, you'll be managing comms and watching on the security system, if we can hack it. Any questions?"

She turns to the rest of them, seeing a lot of raised eyebrows. Pausing, frowning, she says, "I did it again, didn't I?"

"No, no, keep going," Clint says, gesturing at her with a grin. "Very double-oh-seven-esque, Nat. Compelling monologue."

Natasha gives him her sweetest smile and flips him off.

…

Tony's head falls to his chest as he dozes, only for him to jerk it back up, blinking rapidly. The fatigue is weighing on him, and he knows he needs to stay awake, alert, but he can't help the exhaustion and panic threatening to overwhelm him.

Beta left earlier; she took a break, he presumed, and switched out with a hulking man named Delta. He was just as silent, much more stoic, and didn't pay him any mind as he sat in the corner and scrolled through his phone.

Tony had tried taunting him, teasing him, anything to break the stifling silence of this unbearable room, but it had fallen on deaf ears. He'd sighed, giving up, trying again to find a way out of the bonds on his wrists.

His fingers are numb, by now, and he's subconsciously very, very scared.

If this damages his hands, if he loses use of them, or develops a tremor, or _God forbid_ has to have them braced or reset or _amputated_ because some yahoos tied the ropes too tight and cut off circulation to his extremities for hours, maybe days…even if he survives this, he'll be dead the moment Howard and Obadiah see, because he'll be of absolutely no use to them anymore.

But before he can worry about that, he has to worry about getting out.

Unfortunately, he doesn't have much time to plan, because Alpha returns, Beta and Gamma in tow.

"Oh, strong kid," Alpha smirks, dragging in a chair and sitting in front of him again. "Woulda thought you'd be asleep by now."

"Nah, I'm a partier," Tony snarks, giving him a cocky grin.

"Hm," is all Alpha says, smirking right back. "I have a question. My lovely associates searched your pockets, standard procedure and all that, and found something interesting…along with a lot of cash, so thank you for the Christmas bonus."

Tony groans internally. Of course he has plenty more money, but that's cheating.

What else had been in his pockets? His memory is a little fuzzy, probably the effects of the absurd amount of chloroform he's been dosed with, so he can't recall right away.

His confusion must show, because Alpha seems to understand, fishing something out of his pocket and dangling it in front of his face. "So…what's up with the dinosaur phone in the pocket of the world's youngest billionaire, son of the technological mastermind of this century? Bet it's bad for business."

Tony's eyes widen.

It's the phone the Avengers gave him. With all their numbers, saved…their _locations_, practically…

If Alpha figures out what this is, if they're really just in it for the money, those six will be in more danger than they've ever been before, because Tony knows just from this one experience that Alpha is a _very_ dangerous man.

He tries to think of a lie, something, but he's not quick enough. Alpha lashes out, and Tony isn't expecting it; the brutal backhand sends his face whipping aside, tearing a grunt from his lips.

Tony shuts his eyes, breathing through his nose, spitting to the side. The coppery taste of blood floods his mouth, and he can feel the incision on his lip where his teeth have split the skin.

"It's not a good idea to keep me waiting, kiddo," Alpha says, leaning down in front of him. "What's with the phone?"

Tony swallows, looking down. He doesn't like how close Alpha is. He doesn't like how helpless he is.

"It's…" Tony begins, feeling a drop of blood snake down his chin. "I…m-my dad, uh, doesn't want me to be friends with…with kids who aren't…you know, _rich_. I wanted to stay in contact with them, but it had to be a way my dad wouldn't find out, so…I got that. To…stay in touch with them, in a way he couldn't catch me."

Tony gains confidence in the story as he goes on, trying to lift his head under the weight of Alpha's gaze. By the end, he's maintaining eye contact, his eyes glancing fleetingly at the phone still in Alpha's hand.

For a brief second, there's tense silence, and Tony is sure he won't believe the story, his heart clenching. He's going to get so much worse than a backhand for this, and he's scared.

But to his astonishment, Alpha just smirks, pocketing the phone. "That's…really pathetic, kid. I guess the life of a silver spoon isn't all it's cracked up to be."

Tony releases a shaky breath, relieved. _You have no idea, jackass._

"Update for you," Alpha says, taking a swig of water. Tony realizes just how thirsty he is as the sound of the water sloshing in the plastic bottle reaches his ears, and he licks his lips, only for the taste of blood to overwhelm his tongue. "Dad and uncle are conferring with the lawyers, or cops…somebody. It's all very public, don't worry. You're getting a good amount of limelight," he adds with a wink.

Tony scoffs, looking away.

"Anyways," Alpha continues, looking unperturbed, "it's been twelve hours. If we don't have the money in another twelve…" Alpha shrugs, sharing a look with Beta, who smirks. It's the first semblance of a smile he's seen on Beta's face, and it's anything but reassuring. "Then we start…taking steps to correct their course of action."

Tony shivers, looking down at the concrete floor.

"Make yourself comfy," Alpha says. "Hopefully for you, this nightmare will be over in just a few hours."

He leaves again, and through the sliver of open door, he can barely see a closed steel garage door just twenty or so feet from the wooden door leading to the concrete room.

He's confused. He thought he was in a building of some sort, maybe a warehouse, but now he's not so sure. Is it someone's garage, partially reconfigured as a holding cell? Maybe?

Tony's too tired, and suddenly too hungry, to think straight. His stomach gives a growl, and he feels his cheeks heat up as Beta snorts. Tony guesses her break if over, because she's in the chair in the corner, now, and Delta left with Alpha.

"Are you going to watch me sleep?" He snarks, shooting her a look.

She raises an eyebrow, unimpressed. "Yes."

Tony shakes his head, looking away. He may as well try to stay awake, see if he can learn anything useful that might help him.

He's asleep within the hour.

…

Tony drifts in and out of consciousness for several hours, the lack of food, water, and real sleep finally getting the best of him. His body aches, his muscles cramping from remaining in such a constricting position for so long. He's sure his spine is screwed six ways to Sunday by now. When the door gives a particularly violent shudder as it's thrown open, he snaps to awareness, blinking rapidly to try to make sense of the chaos before him.

It's Alpha; he knew it would be. Beta's in tow, with Delta, as well. He wonders if it's just the four of them; there must be more outside, but he wonders how many he's really up against, here.

It's a fleeting, mindless thought, and as it drifts away, he finally registers the rage on Alpha's face.

His heart begins to hammer in his chest.

"It looks like," Alpha says, slowly and carefully, "your dad and uncle don't give two shits about you."

Tony almost laughs. _Coulda told you that_.

Instead, he tries to look confused, questioning. He remains silent. He doesn't like the look in Alpha's eyes.

It's the look that asks for him to make one wrong move, say one more damn word, just to give him the excuse. To give him a reason to hurt him.

Tony knows that look like he knows his own name.

Alpha laughs to himself, quietly, dragging a hand down his face. "They refused. They—they really _refused_. I don't know if it's a damn cop ploy, I don't know if they just really don't care about you, but you're the one who's gonna suffer."

Tony bristles, readying himself, but something unexpected happens. At first, no one touches him; instead, Alpha reaches into his pocket, taking out a thick strip of cloth that looks like it's been sewn with reinforced thread the metallic strands crisscrossing around the edges. "Like it?" Alpha asks, catching his interest. He flinches, and Alpha continues, "New project with black-out curtains, tripled strength and reinforced with steel thread."

Tony's heart drops.

Alpha steps forward.

"No," Tony says quickly, fearful eyes darting between the man and the blindfold in his hand. "Don't, _stop_—"

Someone steps up behind him and grabs his jaw, forcing his mouth wide. He grunts, thrashes, but the ropes hold, and someone stuffs a cloth in his mouth, tying it tightly at the back of his head. His cheeks ache, his jaw locks, but he can't do anything about it.

"Sorry, kiddo," Alpha says, not looking all that sorry. "We can't hurt you—not really. Well, we could, but it's a lot messier than this. Now, this—" he holds up the blindfold, and Tony blinks, trying desperately to hide his fear, "is going to block out all the light in the room, and these—" he takes a pair of headphones from Delta, something you'd see a teenager wear on the street, "—are going to block out every sound. Every sound, even the _smallest_."

Alpha smirks, crouching down and looking him in the eye. Tony sucks in a breath through his nose, but it's not enough; the fear is making him light-headed, and he can't seem to draw in enough air. "A little sensory deprivation can do a lot more damage than physical torture. Maybe your family, or whoever's pulling the strings, will reconsider after we tell them what you're going through. Because trust me—especially for a kid like you, I'm sure this is hell."

Tony flinches, eyes watering even as he tries to remain impassive. As Alpha reaches forward, he tries to twist his head away, to jerk out of his hand's path, but someone fists a hand in his hair and jerks his head up, forcing it to remain still. Alpha smirks, and that's the last thing Tony sees before the blindfold is shoved against his eyes, pinching his eyelids shut as it's knotted at the back of his head.

Tony feels horribly vulnerable, complete darkness keeping him exposed. He can still hear people moving around, but that's it.

"Nn—" he tries to protest, but the gag is tied too tightly. "Nn, _nn—!_"

There's a hand in his hair again and hot breath by his ear. He flinches away, as much as he can, but it's not far enough. "If I were you," Alpha's voice says clearly, "I'd hope your dad pays up soon. I don't think you have any heroes coming."

Someone puts the headphones on—maybe Alpha, maybe Gamma—but then it's…it's gone.

Everything's gone.

There isn't the smallest whisper of sound, the barest hint of light. He's well and truly trapped inside his own mind. He jerks against the ropes, tries to dislodge the blindfold, shake off the headphones, _anything_, but they're all fixed securely to his head.

Someone tousles his hair, and it would feel almost affectionate if the movement didn't scare the shit out of him. He jerks violently, and for some reason he knows they're laughing at him, at his fear, but he can't hear it, can't see it.

Can't hear, can't see, anything at all.

He's lost in the darkness, barely sane enough to know he's awake, it's so black and endless. He has so many nightmares of the dark, and the things that hide in the dark, his demons and his past, and now he's trapped in his own mind with nothing for company but those exact demons, and he can't do it, he's panicking and everything's too much—

He takes a deep, shuddering breath through his nose, trying to stave off the panic in his lungs, in his heart and swelling in his chest, but all he can do is sit and wonder just how long he'll be trapped like this.

After all, Alpha is right.

He has no heroes coming for him.

…

It could be hours later, or minutes later…Tony can't tell. He's spent all his time trying to get a grip on the panic, trying to ignore the pain, trying to keep himself sane in the silent darkness. At least he can feel. He can feel the blindfold over his eyes, the headphones over his ears, the ropes around his wrists and ankles. He can smell—there's not much to smell, just dust and concrete, but it's enough to remind him that he's alive. He's awake, and still lucid.

Otherwise, he may actually convince himself he's blind, deaf, both, or dead.

His breaths come in short pants through his nose, quick intakes of breath barely enough to keep him conscious. The darkness surrounding him is warped with shadows and memories, the worst of his demons that come out when he's weak, vulnerable.

His father, his uncle. The bomb. The hundreds of people he killed.

It's silent, deadly silent, and he knows it, but his mind taunts him with whispers and cutting voices that he _knows_ aren't real. And it's dark, and black and still, but there's a bleeding red, a vague outline of dripping crimson in his mind's eye, and even though he knows it's not real, this isn't like the other times where he could just…wake up, look around, listen to music to drown out the voices.

Tony can't open his eyes. He can't hear anything.

There is absolutely no distraction, and he knows if this continues, he'll be driven past insanity within the day.

The thought sends him spiraling into panic, and he jerks against the ropes, strains and strains and _heaves_ and prays and God, he thinks he's crying because he can't get out, and the longer he stays in this horrible dark place, the longer he sits in his hellhole, the more his grip on reality weakens and frays.

He prays, because he's pretty sure that's the only help he's going to get.

A few seconds pass, and he tries to get a grip, but there's still nothing…and then, something.

But it's nothing good.

A hand fists in his hair. He jerks in surprise and panic at the movement, his surroundings completely devoid of stimulus—he had absolutely no warning. His neck locks up, so when it's jerked back, it's painful and sore. His throat is overextended, and he's having a hard time breathing.

Tony's held in that position for a few seconds, feels something sharp and cold just barely touch his throat. Every muscle tightens.

He can't do a single damn thing to save himself, and he's never felt like such an incompetent, useless child.

He can't quite breath, too afraid to jostle the thing against his neck, but after a second, he's released with a sharp shove. He takes a shuddering breath, but that's all he manages before a closed fist hits his nose. His entire body heaves to the side with the force of the punch—he couldn't see it, couldn't brace himself, so his pliable body is sent reeling. He's sure the chair will tip over, but something steadies it, jolting his body right side up.

His brain is addled from the hit, blood running down his lips and chin, soaking into the gag in his mouth, but his brain is also running a hundred miles a minute.

They're not asking him for anything, not giving him any indication of what they're doing. He figures they're probably using him for something—maybe a video. Probably a video, actually; a tape recording would be worthless since he can't speak. They're probably videoing him.

Dammit, they're probably going to leak it. They said the whole case was public; they'd leak the video instead of sending it straight to Howard and Obadiah.

He doesn't want everyone in the world to see him this—this pathetic.

He shudders, trying to take a deep breath through his swelling nose.

Oh, shit. If his nose swells too much, if his nostrils close—dammit, are they really going to let him _suffocate_?

The panic comes again, and this time, he can't shake it.

He's lost in his mind, and he doesn't know if he'll ever make it out.

…

It's been three days since the Avengers heard about Tony, and they're finally ready to get him out.

Clint and Natasha did some extensive surveillance, and finally caught armed guards congregating around a particular steel door, with a couple select men and women coming in and out of the storage unit regularly. They'd decided that, even without visual confirmation that Tony was inside, they could at least give some intel, even if Tony wasn't there.

They're putting their plan into action tonight. Steve hates to wait, knows that Tony likely isn't getting five-star treatment, but he wants to do this under the cover of darkness, and the rest of them agree.

"After we tell him to stay out of trouble," Bucky grumbles without any heat, "he goes and gets himself kidnapped."

Clint snorts, fingering an arrow. "What did you expect? Damn kid walked into a black-market hotspot hoping to interview a psycho."

Natasha shoves a knife into her hip holster, shrugging on her faded leather jacket. "Well, he's just a kid. He isn't going to make the smartest decisions left to his own devices."

Bruce sits quietly, staring at the computer screen, his eyes downcast.

"What ails you, Bruce?" Thor asks quietly, ruffling the kid's hair. Steve scoots closer, hoping that Bruce will open up. He's been unusually quiet the past couple days.

Bruce shrugs, adjusting his glasses. His face falls.

"Kiddo," Bucky says quietly. Bucky's always had a knack for getting Bruce to talk when he's quiet or upset, so Steve sits back and lets his best friend work. Bucky moves to sit by Bruce, his flash arm around the kid's shoulders. "Remember? No secrets, no judging. You talk, we listen. It's not that hard."

Bruce quirks half a smile, leaning into his side. The room is quiet as Bruce takes a breath. "Whenever…w-when we do this with other kids, it's…easier. We don't…we don't know them, you know?" He blinks, his eyes filling. "I—Tony—I really liked Tony," he admits, looking down. "He's…way nicer than he acts, and we had a lot of fun the other night. I just…don't want him to get hurt."

Steve sighs. He'd thought that was the problem. He walks over to the pair, crouching in front of Bruce. "Hey." Bruce won't look at him; Steve gently tucks a finger under his chin and nudges his head up, and Bruce reluctantly meets his gaze. "We're gonna get him out. Okay?" Bruce nods, but doesn't look convinced. "I know, kiddo. I know you two had fun that night, and I know you want to keep being friends with him. You _can_, Bruce. We're going to get him out. We're going to get him home, safe and sound, and he's going to be okay."

Steve knows he's lying through his teeth. If he's right about Tony's father, home is the last place he should go.

But for Bruce's sake, for Tony's…maybe even for his own sake, he lies, and prays it's true.

Bruce sniffs, nodding. "Okay. O-okay." He turns back to the computer. "I just…hate that I can't help. I feel useless sitting here."

Clint scoffs. "You think any of the rest of us are smart enough to come up with all this comm equipment?" Clint asks dubiously, his earpiece dangling from his fingers. "We're all about as smart as a sack of hammers when it comes to technology. If we didn't have you, we wouldn't be able to do this, runt."

Bruce's eyes get wide, and he quickly turns away, trying to hide a blush. "Um…"

Bucky snorts, ruffling the kid's hair, and Nat chimes in, "Tony's not the only genius around, you know. You're pretty handy yourself." She sends an affectionate smirk in his direction, and all he can do is look down, red as a tomato, and mumble a thank you.

Thor laughs heartily, grinning, and claps him on the back. "Aye, Bruce! Your intelligence surpasses that of many grown men, let alone your peers. You are integral to the Avengers' success, and imperative to the safety of the children we aid."

Bruce grips the chair, his ears burning scarlet. "Guys, stop…"

Steve can't help but laugh at the look of utter mortification on the kid's face.

God, it feels good. He needed to laugh.

"Better?" He asks, only to get a small nod as the kid buries his face in his keyboard, trying to escape eye contact. He can't help another snort, squeezing Bruce's neck affectionately. "Let's get ready, guys. We move in ten."

He looks around the room, to see everyone gearing up. There's a different sense of determination this time, and Steve realizes that Bruce is right.

This isn't like another mission with a faceless monster beating an innocent child. It's not just another criminal whose loved ones are facing the consequences.

This is Tony. This is—someone they know, someone who opened his home to them, who went above and beyond for them, in some of their darkest moments, and never asked for a single thing in return. It's a cocky brat who refuses to show the world the extent of his kindness.

It's personal, and Steve will be damned to hell before he lets Tony suffer another day.

…

Getting in position is easy. Causing a distraction is easy. Slipping past the immediate guards and cameras is easy.

Once he and Nat hit thirty feet within the garage door, though, it's not easy.

Bucky and Thor are fighting the men and women guarding the gate after setting off a small explosive around the complex to draw some bodies away, with Clint firing electrified, blunt arrows from the rooftop next door, trying to pick off the immediate guards. Steve and Nat are trying to sneak in through the side, where they'll find a side door or a vent, but there were more guards than they'd thought.

They'd been smart, too—a ton of people dressed in black standing guard at the gate, main entrance, and surrounding areas would have been too suspicious—would have tipped off the employees immediately. No, everyone's in casual clothing. A lot of them were disguised as construction workers building some type of guard post beside the front gate, a perfect excuse to hang out all day and a perfect spot to keep track of everyone going in and out.

Then there are the others, lounging at a nearby picnic table, watching intently, food spread out before them in an apparent picnic. Others walk around in suits, pretending to survey the land, the units, but their sharp eyes give them away, at least to Steve and the others.

These are professionals with the money and resources to keep this place under their thumb and make it look like a run of the mill storage facility. This isn't just a kidnapping for some quick cash—this is a huge operation, practically its own crime syndicate hiding out in a storage facility in New York.

Steve can't help but feel like they're in way over their heads, but there's no going back now.

The plan is to have Bucky and Thor continue the distraction. Once Clint has taken care of enough to keep Thor and Bucky from being overwhelmed, he'll head down and find one of the cars, hotwire it, and be waiting for the signal to pull up, providing them with a convenient escape.

Finding Tony isn't a problem. Steve knows he's just beyond the metal door, probably another wall and door, and then a room within the storage unit—they wouldn't be stupid enough to leave him exposed and visible with the main door open, but they wouldn't be able to create a bigger unit by knocking out the back wall without raising some eyebrows, either.

Nat and he are both capable fighters, but they're still just kids, and sometimes Steve forgets.

They try to sneak in covertly, but they're made two seconds into the attempt.

"How's the gate coming?" He asks, hoping the comm picks him up over all the noise. He blocks a punch from the person to his right, grabbing the wrist and slinging his opponent into the approaching left goon.

"Still overrun, thank you for the distraction," Bucky grunts, and Steve hears a spurt of gunfire.

His heart leaps. "Everyone okay?"

"All is well, Steven," Thor shouts, giving a mighty yell as he assumedly downs another opponent. "Bucky and I will surpass them yet!"

Bucky scoffs, grunting. "Yep, lots of surpassing going on here, Steve. Go find Miracle Kid."

Steve ducks a swing, and it may have saved his life, because a bullet whizzes over his head.

_Dammit_, he thinks, whipping around to see a shooter on the roof. "Clint! Two o'clock!"

"Yeah, I got 'im," Clint mutters, and Steve can almost see him, one eye closed in concentration, as he fires dead center, just like Steve knows he will.

No more bullets come whizzing their way.

They've whittled down their numbers, but Nat and Steve are both breathing heavily, sporting bruises and cuts that won't look good in the morning.

"Steve," Nat yells, shooting three guys in the feet in quick succession. They go down with cries of pain, and Steve knows they won't be causing trouble for a while. "Go find Tony. I'll finish up here."

Steve hesitates. He's reluctant to leave her alone. "Tash—"

"Go, you moron," she scoffs, sending him a wink. "I think I'll be fine."

Smiling back, his heart hammering, he rushes the door, slipping inside.

It's like he's stepping into a different world—the outside is so chaotic, and the inside is so devoid of sound. He can hear distant spurts of gunfire, grunts, clangs, but it's too muted to be of much importance.

There's a man waiting for him, a gun pointed straight at his head.

Steve stops short.

"Damn," the man says, rolling his eyes towards the sky in a show of exasperation. "I knew it was taking too long. Thought the feds were gearing up for a prison break, but I didn't know it would be a bunch of kids."

Steve narrows his eyes, taking a step forwards, only for a bullet to gouge the ground at his feet. "Stay."

Steve doesn't move forward, and the man smirks. "Good. You're not a fed, so who the hell are you?"

Steve is hesitant to answer, but he raises his chin and does so anyways. "The Avengers. You may have heard of us; media doesn't like us very much, but we get the job done."

The man's face is blank for a moment, but then he snorts, laughing. "_Shit_, it's you guys? The ragtag group of angtsy teenagers, going around, hunting child abusers? You guys exist?" The man laughs again, and Steve can't help but feel a little offended.

"Yes, we exist," he says through clenched teeth. "And so far, we have a perfect track record, so I'm not liking your odds."

"God, this is a telenovela," the man mutters, still grinning. "It's—it's fascinating. Who knew you kids would be stupid enough to storm this place?"

Steve shrugs, but his eyes flick to the simple door at the man's back.

He's wiling to bet everything he has that Tony's through there.

"You have a kid in there," Steve says authoritatively, "who doesn't belong to you. So you're on my list."

"Oh, I'm quivering," the man deadpans. "So what if I just…you know, shoot you? I don't see you having much luck getting past me, kiddo."

"Nah," Steve says, smiling confidently. "I think you're scared."

The man smirks, clearly amused. He finds this whole situation hilarious, and his ego is the size of New York, and that's something Steve can work with. "You don't say."

"Yeah," Steve says, relaxing his posture. "You're standing right under the vent. You getting a little hot? Nervous, maybe?"

The man's smirk turns confused, but he still looks unruffled. "You're a weird kid."

"You know why we have a perfect track record?" Steve asks, praying this works.

"Enlighten me."

Steve smirks, now, hearing a slight scuffle above them. "Because people always underestimate kids."

The vent pops open, and the man's smirk falls. His head whips up just in time for Natasha to land on him, knocking him out with a sharp elbow to the temple. His body falls forward and she rolls off his shoulders, landing in a crouch.

"You're getting rusty, Rogers," she chides, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. "'You getting a little hot?' Seriously? That was about as subtle as Bruce's anger management tactics."

"Hey," Bruce says weakly, his voice staticky over the line.

"No, I agree," Clint grunts, obviously straining. He's probably scaling down the building, going to get the car now that we're inside. "That was weak, man."

Steve huffs. "It worked, didn't it?" He hustles to the door; it's locked, unsurprisingly, so he crouches, pulling out his lockpick. "Nat, watch the door, okay?"

"Yes, boss," she says, slipping toward the entrance.

Steve is scared of the state Tony will be in—that man seemed…cruel. Not just egotistical, but cruel, and Tony's been at his mercy for nearly four days.

Steve sighs, finally feeling the lock give, easing the door open. He prepares himself as much as he can.

For better or worse, at least they found him.

…

Clint drops from the wall and turns, ready to grab a car, when someone tackles him.

He isn't expecting it; he was sure he cleared the area, and he tried to change the trajectory of his arrows so no one could pinpoint his location, but apparently he needs to brush up on that.

"You little shit," the man atop him says, sending a fist crashing into his temple. Clint is stunned enough to miss the next hit coming, and his head whips back the other way. He knows he needs to block, fight, get this man off of him and get a car to help his friends, but his head is still foggy from the hits. The man is crushing his ribcage, and his lungs refuse to inflate. He wheezes, sending a weak punch towards his assailant, but his wrist is grabbed and pinned.

His bow is digging into his back, useless, and the knife strapped to his ankle is out of reach. He blinks heavily, trying to clear the black dots away, lashing out with his other hand, but he's still disoriented.

"You hurt a lot of my friends," the man growls, punching him again. Clint groans, distantly aware that he can't feel his earpiece; his friends can't hear this, can't hear him.

They don't know he's in trouble, so no one's coming.

A sharp stab of fear hits him, and he tries to buck the man off, but another hit sends his skull ratting against the concrete. He groans, feeling his arm go limp at his side, the man's bruising grip on his other wrist not letting up.

"I figure I should return the favor, you know?" He growls, reaching behind him. Clint's blurry eyes zone in on a knife, and the man raises it high above his head.

Clint's breath hitches, and he squeezes his eyes shut.

_Natasha_, he thinks, icy fear seizing him, making it impossible for him to inhale. _Tasha, I'm so sorry._

He tenses, bringing up his free hand in a futile attempt to block the knife—

The man atop him stops short, and a gurgling sound bubbles from his throat, and then he's sliding off of him sideways. Confused, wary, Clint opens his eyes, heaving the man off of him and dragging himself out from under the collapsed weight.

A tall figure dressed in all red, his eyes completely covered by a leather mask, comes into sight.

"Need a hand?" He says, sticking out his arm. Clint takes it hesitantly, and the stranger lifts him to his feet, steadying him when he sways slightly, still trying to get his balance back. "Hit your head?"

Clint nods, and the stranger doesn't respond, simply waiting. The man sighs. "I can't see you if you nod or shake, kid. Did you hit your head?"

Clint stops short, stuttering, "Uh—y-yeah, I think."

"Dizzy?"

Clint starts to nod, then says, "A little, but I'm okay. Uh—thanks."

"No worries," he says, tossing a pair of keys in Clint's general direction. They're too far to his left, and Clint's reactions are off, but he manages to catch them. Eyebrows furrowing, he starts to speak, but the stranger cuts him off.

"A few hundred feet down the street, beat up silver SUV. Should fit the rest of your merry gang." The man sends a smirk in his general direction, turning to a rusty fire escape on the adjacent building. "Next time you want to cause chaos, do it in your own borough, okay?"

"Wait!" Clint yells, scanning the alleyway for anyone else who may have been drawn by the commotion, but they're in the clear. "Who are you? Why'd you help us?"

"They call me the Devil of Hell's Kitchen," the man calls, scaling the fire escape in just a few seconds. Clint looks up, wide-eyed, at a loss for words. "Stay out of here, okay? No place for kids like you."

And then he's gone.

Clint's left alone in a dark alley, staring the keys in his hand, with an unconscious man at his feet and absolutely no clue just what happened.

"Holy shit," he breathes, jogging towards the car the man had indicated.

At first, Clint thought he was hallucinating. Thought the man was his saving grace.

He remembers stories his mom used to tell him about guardian angels, and snorts.

So much for an angel.

…

It's hours before someone touches him again, and Tony knows instantly that something is different.

He can't hear anything through the headphones, can't see anything at all. He's trapped in his own mind with nothing but his thoughts, constantly waiting for something to break the torturous monotony. His numb hands twitch in a feeble attempt to free himself, but he doesn't know how long it's been and he can barely stay awake, let alone escape.

His chin rests on his chest, the gag pulling uncomfortably on his jaw, the blindfold secure around his eyes, as he struggles to draw in breath through his nose with his head tipped forward, the strain on his neck way past just uncomfortable.

When someone first puts a hand on his arm, it isn't threatening, or demanding. It's a soft, gentle touch, from large, warm hands with calloused fingers. Nevertheless, his environment is so muted that he jerks weakly in surprise, his head snapping up and wobbling exhaustedly on his shoulders as he tries to flinch away.

The hand is jerked away, and Tony's breaths pick up, unsure of who this is, what they want, or what they're willing to do.

Suddenly, he feels hands remove the headphones from his ears, and then they move to the knot in the blindfold at the back of his head. The onslaught of sound is staggering, and he flinches at the harsh voices and loud booms of gunshots and clangs of doors and weapons.

When the blindfold is finally pulled away, he squints his eyes closed tightly, the light blinding and piercing and horrible after so much darkness. His senses are being absolutely _assaulted_, and he can't handle it. He struggles again against the hands and against the ropes, but he only manages to exhaust himself before he realizes that someone is saying his name.

"—ony! _Tony_, look at me!"

Slowly, he opens his eyes, blinking against the light, and turns his head towards the voice. Their face is blurry, unrecognizable, and he realizes he's shaking.

"Hey, calm down," the voice says, the volume lowered by several decibels, "it's me. It's us. Come on, look at me."

The same large hands come around on either side of his head and work at the knot in the gag while Tony blinks furiously, trying to clear the spots from his vision. The person in front of him bleeds into focus just as the gag is pulled away and he releases a dry cough, sucking in a rattling breath.

"Steve?"

The person in front of him quirks a small smile, but there's worry in his eyes. "Yeah, it's me. Let's get you out of here, okay?"

Tony nods, swallowing as Steve moves behind him to cut the ropes around his wrists. His throat is like sandpaper, but he manages, "How did…you f-find me?"

"I'll explain later," Steve rushes, moving around to grab his shoulders as he sways. "Can you stand?"

Wordlessly, Tony grips Steve's forearms and leverages himself up out of sheer willpower. After two steps, however, his battered body gives out, his knees buckling. Steve catches him under his arms and around his chest, taking most of his weight until Tony gets his bearings.

"I'm okay," Tony breathes, the words rough against his throat.

"Sure you are," Steve says quietly, stopping when the sounds of gunfire grow louder. "You've been gone for four days, Tony. How long ago did they feed you?"

"Uh…" Tony thinks, his muddled mind rifling through his capture. It's all one blur, really, but he remembers someone taking the gag off at some point, forcing water down his throat, then shoving the cloth back on. "They didn't…I had some water, though. Um…I d-don't know how long ago…"

Steve curses quietly. "I don't think you can make it out of here on your own. I'm gonna carry you, okay?"

Tony's about to say something along the lines of _hell to the frick no_, when Steve sweeps him off his feet like a damn damsel.

"I can _walk_," Tony says, pushing weakly against Steve's chest.

Steve just holds him tighter, though, shooting him an unimpressed look. "No, you can't, and it's nothing to be ashamed of. We've got you, okay?" He ducks around a corner, and Tony can feel Steve's heartbeat against his side, strong and steady.

For just a second, he allows himself to feel just a little safer, and that's all it takes for the adrenaline to leave his system and exhaustion to overtake him. He feels his limbs fall, his body relaxing into Steve's arms, becoming absolute deadweight. Steve feels the change, because he looks down, eyebrows creased. "Stay with me, okay?"

Tony blinks heavily, but he doesn't know if he can respond. "I…I don't…"

"Tony, come on," Steve says, spinning around yet another corner. The sound of gunfire is getting closer. In Tony's peripheral, he sees Bucky come up on Steve's side, holstering his handgun. It looks weird—he wonders if it's configured to shoot anesthetic darts instead of bullets, but he's too tired to ask.

His eyes fall closed, and he can't open them this time. His arm goes limp, falling from Steve's shoulder, bouncing as he continues to cart him through the base.

"Tony! Open—"

And Tony's out.

…

Tony's warm and horizontal.

That's such a change to the last time he was lucid that he's not really sure what happened in between.

He opens his eyes hesitantly, bringing up a clumsy hand to shield his eyes from the sunlight. He's lying on something soft, but it's hard beneath it; looking up, he sees a thick copse of trees shielding him from direct sunlight, but there's enough for it to hurt his eyes. The calling of birds and insects surrounds him, and he's confused.

He lifts his heavy head as much as he can, looking down at himself. He's in one of his old sleeping bags—one of the ones he gave to his favorite criminals.

It all comes rushing back.

"You're awake!" A voice says excitedly to his left, and Tony can hear the undisguised relief in it. Turning his head slightly, wincing at the ache in his skull and—well, his everywhere—his squinted eyes come to rest on Bruce, sitting beside him. Bruce looks tired, but he's smiling, his glasses just slightly askew. "How do you feel? Want some water?"

Tony tries to lick his lips, but his mouth is bone dry, and he can barely move his tongue, it feels so swollen. He settles for a small nod, reaching out for the bottle. He only then notices his hand is shaking.

"Let me help you," Bruce says, and for all Bruce's shyness, Tony doesn't think he's going to win this argument, so he can only sigh.

Bruce puts a firm him on his shoulder and helps him sit up, Tony's body aching with each movement. A small noise of discomfort escapes him, and he shuts his eyes tightly, taking a slow, deep breath. Something plastic touches his lips and he opens his eyes to see Bruce holding the bottle to his mouth.

"Drink some," Bruce says, adamant. "You'll feel better, I promise."

Tony does. He reaches a shaking hand up to clasp the bottle, but Bruce keeps a steady hand on it as Tony drinks like a dying man. He feels like he hasn't had water in weeks. He feels his head tilt back as the cool water rushes into his mouth, and soon he's chugging, and he can't get enough—

"Slow down," Bruce says quietly, gently taking the bottle as Tony sucks in a breath, his body shaking. "You'll make yourself sick, Tony. You haven't had anything in a while."

Tony nods, swallowing, and it's so much easier, now. He allows Bruce to set the pace, gently tipping the water bottle against his lips again. Tony fumbles for it, but Bruce is ultimately holding most of the weight. It runs down his chin and seeps into the collar of his shirt, but he can't even care, because he's so _thirsty_.

Before he really knows it, the bottle is empty. He heaves a breath, trying not to be disappointed as Bruce sets the empty plastic aside. "Better?"

Tony nods, feeling his upper body sway the longer he stays upright.

"Here, lie back down," Bruce says quickly, putting a hand on Tony's back to guide him down. Distantly, Tony's embarrassed by the amount of attention Bruce is giving him, but he can't very well do all this himself, so he has no choice but to accept the help.

"Look who's up," a voice says to his right. He turns his head to see Natasha and Clint walking up, a smirk on Natasha's face. Clint's face is looking a little worse for wear, but he's moving alright. She crouches beside him, gently flicking the side of his head with a smile. "How're you feeling?"

Tony shrugs half-heartedly. "Better." His voice sounds like he's smoked for two decades.

"I can see that," Clint says dubiously, plopping down beside Bruce, slinging his arm around the younger boy's shoulders. "You look a little better, though."

"You don't," he jokes quietly, his voice raspy.

Clint snorts. "Watch it, half pint."

"Do you think you could eat something?" Natasha says, digging around in one of the backpacks, resurfacing with a can of soup.

Tony considers, staring up at the trees. "I…don't know…"

"I'll heat this up for if you change your mind. If not, we'll eat it; there's more you can have later, if you're feeling better."

Tony nods, feeling his eyelids droop. He wants to go back to sleep and ignore everything happening. He doesn't know how to handle it. He hasn't had anyone taking care of him in years now, and it's…odd.

"How's—hey, Tony," Steve says with a grin, emerging from the tree line with Bucky and Thor in his wake. "It's good to see you up."

Tony quirks a little smile, but he can barely keep his eyes open. Steve notices, smiling. "Go back to sleep. You can try to eat when you wake up. We'll talk then, too; answer some questions. Sound good?"

He hums, closing his eyes, drifting off.

The last thing he hears is Natasha saying, "Sure, _after_ I put the soup on."

**A/N: There, hope that made up for the cliffhanger last chapter! How'd you like it? It was super long, sorry. **

**Drop a review if you have a minute? This is definitely the most complex story I've ever attempted, so if I'm missing something or if you see a plot hole pop up, I'd love for you to let me know :) or if I'm doing a good job and you want to tell me, I'd love that too!**

**Did you like our guest star cameo…? ;) I honestly had no idea I was putting Daredevil in there until I wrote him, but I hope you liked it! **

**As always, my wonderful reviewers, I appreciate you more than words can say: NostalgicFangirl, Luckias, PhoenixNinja101, Christine-Danielle, The Violent Kurumi, Castar, Kuroshiroryuu, Beakers47, katie owl, Sanako190515, StormShadow13, Katie-the-book-nerd, Guest, FandomFreals, monkeybaby, SavannahWeaver0, Jua, and GiulyITA!**

**Guest: I'm glad? Lol no but thanks! I'm glad you like it!**

**Jua: Thanks! I don't know who all will come in yet, but we'll see what happens :) I will! Thanks!**

**Thanks to everyone who's following and who's favorited! Please drop a review if you want :D I appreciate you all! **


	6. Chapter 6

Tony blinks his eyes open.

The gentle crackle of a campfire lays to his left, soft popping escaping the burning logs. Cicadas and mosquitoes buzz around, alighting his senses with an influx of noise. The fire dances in his sight, green leaves swaying lazily above him in the breeze. Branches cascade over his vision, shrouding him from the darkening sky, dusk approaching as the sun sinks below the distant horizon.

Tony lets out a single soft laugh, closing his eyes as they water.

He's never been so happy to see. To hear.

"You awake again?"

Tony opens his eyes again, eyelids heavy, but manageable. It's Bucky, on his right, a bottle of water opened and in hand.

Tony nods softly, scanning his limited field of vision. Before the question is on his tongue, Bucky answers, "They went to grab the rest of our gear from the base we used. They'll be back soon."

Tony nods, eyes drooping, but he fights to keep them open.

"Water?" Bucky asks, his voice quiet. Tony thinks this is the most he's ever heard him speak.

"Yeah," Tony rasps, trying to leverage himself up. Bucky, though clearly a bit uncomfortable, reaches out to steady him, handing him the opened bottle.

Tony fumbles with it, water sloshing onto his sweat-dried shirt. His hands feel…big and clumsy, like they're not his. He looks down with clearing vision, seeing white bandages ensconcing his wrists, which burn dully in the background of his senses. "Thanks," he says quietly, tipping the water into his mouth. His hands are shaking, and he feels some dribble down his chin and soak into the collar of his shirt again, but he manages to swallow most of it.

He's drunk half the bottle before he's satisfied, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand and handing the bottle back to Bucky before he can drop it. Bucky seals it.

Tony leans forward, resting his elbows on his legs and massaging his temples. His head is _pounding_.

"Headache?" Bucky guesses, voice toneless. "Probably because you haven't eaten in so long. There's some soup; I can heat it."

Tony looks up, nodding. "That…would be great."

Bucky nods wordlessly, putting the tin bowl on two metal bars crisscrossing over the fire, mounted by sticks on each side. After a moment of nothing but the soup slowly bubbling, Tony smiles. "I could…give you a camping stove, if…you wanted." His breath isn't coming easily. He assumes it's exhaustion and weakness.

"I prefer our primitive setup, thank you," Bucky says, and Tony swears he hears a hint of sarcasm. So Bucky _can_ banter.

"Primitive's a…big word," Tony says with a smirk, testing the waters.

Bucky raises an eyebrow. "Says the walking encyclopedia."

Tony huffs a laugh, and is angry that even that is exhausting. "You're funnier than…you look."

Bucky shrugs, taking the bowl off the makeshift stove and setting it on the grass quickly, letting it cool. "Someone has to be, with Clint's comic-relief tendencies. He gets cranky if no one banters with him."

Tony hums in consideration, looking around. They're in a small clearing deep in the forest, he assumes, if the noisy wildlife is anything to go by. Large trees surround them, thick roots splaying out in curving streams, edging into one another. The thick trunks are decorated with gouges and cuts, and Tony knows this area has seen a lot of foot traffic, once upon a time.

The clearing itself sports lush green grass, soft dirt pliant beneath his fingers. The dirt must be rich, if the fauna is growing so well.

"Where are we?" He asked as Bucky hands him the cooled bowl and a tin spoon.

"Old camping ground," he replies, standing and brushing the grass off his pants, crossing to one of the bags lying on the other side of the fire. Tony watches him warily, a habit he can't break. "It hasn't been used in years. Too many wildlife incidents, so the authorities sectioned it off as a wildlife refuge."

Tony hums again, dipping the spoon in the soup and trying to steady his shaking hand. Unfortunately, it's vibrating so badly the soup splashes back into the bowl, and Tony soon gives up, lifting the bowl to his lips and drinking.

God, it's so good.

He takes two long gulps and stops to breathe, his stomach uneasy even after so little. "Slow," Bucky orders, retrieving another can of soup from within the bag and settling himself back beside Tony, preparing to warm his own. "Your stomach's been empty for a while."

Tony nods, taking a steadying breath, but he can't help it. "My compliments…to the chef."

"I'll be sure to tell Campbell for you."

Tony smirks, taking another sip, slower this time. At that moment, twigs snap in his periphery, and his head whips toward the sound with dizzying speed. He catches himself with a hand on the ground, almost dropping the bowl.

"It's just them," Bucky assures him.

Sure enough, five silhouettes trek through the trees and emerge into the clearing, carrying gear. "He lives!" Thor yells, raising a triumphant fist. "How fares thee, young one?"

Tony quirks an eyebrow at his vocabulary, but shrugs. "Better. I've got food, which is nice."

"So you'll eat Bucky's soup, but not mine?" Natasha ask good-naturedly, sending a smirk Bucky's way.

Bucky snorts. "Guess you're not as popular with the opposite sex as you thought, Nat. How's it feel to be knocked down a peg?"

"Why don't I let you know?" She says, squeezing his shoulder affectionately in passing, then crouching beside Tony. "You look better. There's more color in your cheeks."

Tony pauses. "Thanks?"

"It was a compliment," she confirms, smirking. "You looked like a corpse when we brought you here."

Tony flinches. "Oh."

"Stop scaring him," Steve chides, setting his load down. "I'm glad you seem more alert, Tony."

"Me too," Tony replies, sipping more of the soup. It's tomato. He likes tomato. "Sorry for the trouble."

"No trouble," Clint assures, and for the first time, Tony sees clearly the extent of the damage to his face. There's a bandage on his cheek, and another on his forehead, deep bruising marring a considerable portion of the left side. Clint catches his looking and smiles ruefully, saying, "A beefy guy decided I looked like a punching bag. I'm fine."

Tony still feels bad. He…really didn't want any of them to get hurt saving them. He wasn't worth that.

"The police are rounding up everyone at the crime scene," Steve says hesitantly, as though he's uncomfortable broaching the subject. "There were a lot of them there. It was quite the setup."

Tony shifts, uncomfortable. "It usually is."

"Usually?" Bruce asks, glasses askew as always, eyes concerned. Having dropped the heavy bag, he plops beside Tony. "This has happened before?"

Tony takes another drink of soup to buy him a second to word his response, not looking at them. "Um…yes. I'm kind of a high-profile hostage…if you haven't noticed." He gives them a wry grin, taking a shaky breath. He sets the bowl down before he can drop it. "Do they know…I was there?"

"They're pretty sure," Steve says, not looking totally satisfied with his words, but continuing on despite it. "They're looking for you, so we had to get out of there quick. Figured you'd want to say hi to your rescuers."

Tony smirks, pleased to find his headache receding, and that his breathing is easier. He does want to see them, but he's most grateful for them giving him some time to collect himself before facing Howard and Obadiah. He doesn't know if he'd be able to face them in his current condition. "Of course. My favorites fugitives…and heroes to boot."

He takes another sip of his soup. "How'd you find me? They were professionals. I know they covered their tracks."

"We tracked the phone we gave you," Bruce said just as Natasha threw the device in question into his lap, narrowly missing his soup. "Good thing you had it with you; we were having a really hard time tracking the car they took you in."

"Oh, right," Tony said, reminded of how he got into the predicament. He turned to Clint. "This is all your fault. Blame falls entirely to you."

Tony's tone was flat, bordering on teasing, but Clint looked surprised, nonetheless. "Um…did I sleep-kidnap you, or something?"

"No, you suggested I take a taxi, and…the next thing I knew, I was just another damsel in distress waiting for my knights in shining armor." Tony glanced at Natasha. "Knight and…knightess."

Clint, in the meantime, has taken the accusation in stride, snorting. "Well, were you going to walk back to your mansion? Or take a private helicopter, maybe?"

"Hm, that would have been nice," Tony remarks, sipping again. He's getting to the bottom of the bowl, and as much as he wants to ask for more, his stomach is rebelling at just the small amount of nutrition. "Um. Well, I guess I should get it over with. Thank you for…you know."

He waves a shaking hand, trying to appear nonchalant. He doesn't like thanking people. Well, no, that isn't true. It's more he doesn't like people doing things for him that require thanks. It makes him feel incapable, which is something he doesn't need on top of all the other shit.

"Of course. We're even." Steve says, smiling despite Tony's apprehension.

Tony blinks. Well…he hadn't considered that. He'd saved them twice, hadn't he?

"…yeah," he concedes, happy that he isn't in debt. "Even."

"So…I have to ask," Clint says hesitantly, and that's all it takes for Tony to tense up again. "We were following the story in the news, hoping for clues of some kind…why didn't your dad pay the ransom?"

Tony stills, wishing he had more soup to buy himself a second to think up an answer, but the bowl is hopelessly empty. He breathes deeply, steadying himself. "It's kind of…a policy?" He shrugs, looking Clint in the eye. "An SI one. Don't negotiate with terrorists…or kidnappers. That's what the lawyers suggested when I was a kid, when it happened the first time." He shrugs, looking down. "That wasn't exactly enough of a deterrent, I guess."

There's silence for a moment, and Tony is beyond uncomfortable, and tired. "It's not like…like nobody even paid the ransom, you know? My mom and my aunt usually put something together. But my dad and uncle thought it was better to listen to the lawyers' advice. Now that my mom's…gone…and my aunt is usually out of the country now…well, they usually listen to whoever will save them the most money."

Tony's taking a calculated risk admitting this fact. It's neglect, there's no question about it, but Tony has racked his brain for all the Avengers cases (and he's researched them _all_) and they never did anything about neglect cases, only physical, sexual, or really horrible emotional abuse. Neglect was harder to prove.

Perhaps, by admitting to the neglect, it will ward off any suspicions they may have about the rest. Because they're not stupid. They must have suspicions.

He looks up, shrugging again, giving them a cocky grin patented to dispel any and all sympathy. "It's the price I pay for being a rich kid. Other kids like me go through the same stuff. Hell, it's practically a right of passage in the one percenter world."

They look, for the most part, distinctly unimpressed, but they leave the subject alone for now. Good. He doesn't know how much more bullshitting he can handle.

"So, when…should I head back?" He asks carefully, schooling his features to hide the twist of his gut at the prospect.

Steve shrugs, looking around. "When you're strong enough. We figured we could drop you at a police station, or at home, wherever you needed. I don't really want you going until at least tomorrow, though; you're still really pale."

"I bet," Tony admits, feeling the fatigue. Days of starvation, dehydration, sensory deprivation, and several other unpleasant -ations have left him practically useless. "I'm actually going to…take a nap, if that's okay."

"You don't have to ask to take a nap, Tony," Bruce assures, smiling.

"Yep. Rest easy, little guy. We'll be up for a while, so you're safe." Clint reassures him as he situates himself under the bag's flap once more, and while the name earns Clint a middle finger, Tony won't admit to anyone but himself how much he needed to hear those words.

Settling down deep in the sleeping bag, curling up, he drifts off to the sound of quiet conversation and stifled laughter, sleeping in the bag he used to sleep in when he and his mother went camping. He feels strangely close to her, and it's the safest he's felt in a while.

Feeling secure, he lets himself drift.

…

Natasha watches Tony fall asleep, pensive.

Steve has shared his worries about Tony's home life with them all, and she's not sure she's comfortable letting the boy go back. She knows she probably won't say anything—it will happen whether she's comfortable with it or not. But it gets her thinking about what goes on behind closed doors in the Stark Mansion.

Her opinion of him has changed considerably since meeting him for the first time, around a year ago. Up to that point, he was a passing face in the news that she paid no mind to, other than the subconscious pangs of envy that crept in without her permission. He was portrayed as having the whole word in the palm of his small hand.

Now, it seemed more like he had the world on his shoulders.

It was a picture painted by small, intimate details—nothing nearly enough to craft an accurate depiction, but enough to get her started. When they first encountered them, it was a rough meeting—he'd pushed all her buttons, every one of them, without an ounce of remorse. However, despite the snarky comments and the sarcasm dripping from his words, he kept giving, and blowing it off. He'd saved Bucky's life, enduring the criticism and ridicule they'd automatically tossed at him. They hadn't asked for food. They hadn't asked for things to sleep on, or a first aid kit to take with them. They hadn't asked to take sleeping bags, or extra food, or clothes. And yet a thirteen-year-old, who claimed to love nothing other than himself, had given it without a second thought.

Beyond that, he risked his own safety, and according to Steve the safety of someone very close to him, to save Steve, and to get them safely together. No matter how much of a genius, there was always a chance Tony would be identified as the one who'd broken into the database, either through the programming, the tracking…there were a number of clues that could have led back to him, and he risked it.

And finally, when they'd given him the phone—a tiny token of their gratitude that they all agreed could never come close to repaying what he'd done for them, saving two of them from certain death and imprisonment—he'd had the audacity to say that they needn't have paid him back. And she _knew_ when people lied. For his kindness, his own risks, and his own money and belongings and time, he expected nothing.

She's done her research on types of people, and she is a very good profiler, and an even better judge of character. The people with the most often want to take more—they are egotistical and selfish, and want to see an infinite pile of belongings and wealth expand. She had always assumed that Tony Stark was undeniably one of those elites.

Now, she has to drastically reassess.

She's going to be helping Steve with this project of his, because she has a growing feeling that Tony Stark is more like them than anyone ever thought possible…in more ways than one.

**A/N: Yeah, so…this is INCREDIBLY short. And I get that. So…very sorry. But I really wanted to just…I don't know, let you know that I'm trying. I've kind of lost motivation for this story, but I'm hoping it will pick back up the farther along I get in my other in-progress works! One of them is coming to an end and one of them is getting super intense, so I'm really focused on those. **

**Also, I try to me a lot more intentional about the detail and plot in this one, just because it's such an intricate story, so it's a lot more intense to write. And…life. Yeah. I'm just making excuses, but, ya know. I hope you understand :)**

**I can't remember if I ever replied to the reviews, but I appreciate them all so much; let me know if I didn't and I will, because I want to thank each of you individually! Special thanks to: PhoenixNinja101, Luckias, Castar, The Violent Kurumi, Kuroshiroryuu, Ichigo1217, Beakers47, JadeSlytherin394, PoisonIvy533, . 15, Cynthia of the Wallflowers, Christine-Danielle, FandomFreals, TC Howl, Jua, ShadowedRose17, alice 0, Electric Raven, WhatHappenedtotheWifi (same bro), SavannahWeaver0, user101, spideyboixoxoxo, TwilightGlow3, and sloth-life! And thanks so much for everyone following and favoriting!**

**Jua: poor Tony indeed. Thanks for the review! I hope to! **

**Electric Raven: hey, you popped over from Back in Black! thanks so much! Hahahaha I'm so glad you like it! I know the bonding is so sweet and it's s fun to write. Thanks for such an amazing compliment! Not gonna spoil anything...but hold on to that ;)**

**sloth-life: Thanks so much! Hope you liked this chapter! **

**I fervently hope that the next chapter (which I've started!) Will be up sooner rather than later. Regardless, I hope you'll stick around and be patient :) thanks so much for your support, and I hope you enjoyed! **


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